I LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

^ 






^ UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 




^-v*9v-r-n'*:r^*^ 



-'^ 




^ 



HENRY HUDSON 



HOLLAND. 



AN INQUIRY INTO THE ORIGIN AND OBJECTS 
OF THE VOYAGE WHICH LED 



DISCOVERY 



HUDSON RIVER. 



/y > 



V 



BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES. 



THE HAGUE, 

THE BBOTFIERS GIUNTA D\ALBANI. 
1859. 









L'RINTEI) rOR PllIVATE DISTRIBUTION. 



The following memoir is the result of an investiga- 
tion made here for the purpose of ascertaining, more 
precisely than has hitherto been explained, the circum- 
stances which originated the voyage made on behalf 
of the Dutch East India Company by Henry Hudson, 
the motives , purposes and character of its projectors , 
and the designs of the navigator himself at the time 
he sailed upon that expedition. The inquiry has elicited 
some new and curious information, which it is hoped 
will prove interesting to those who love to study the 
proximate causes Avhich led to the actual settlement 
of our continent by civilized man. The record of events 
which was fortunately made for us by the French 
ambassador then at the Hague is now fully identified 
and corroborated; the enterprizing spirits of Holland 
to whose energy we are indebted for the voyage are 
recognized, at least partially, and found to have been 
also the authors of the famous expeditions to the Arctic 
seas of William Barendszoon; and Hudson himself 
is seen to have contemplated and prepared himself in 
this voyage for the very exploration which he made of 



the greater part of the Atlantic coast of the United 
States and which resulted in the discovery of the bay 
of New York and its noble tributary. 

Other points of interest connected with the sending 
out of this expedition will attract especial attention. 
The most important of them is the explicit statement 
of Hudson in regard to the amelioration of the climate 
at the extreme Northern latitude attained by him in 
his previous explorations, and its remarkable concom- 
itant, an open navigation towards the pole. It was 
this relation which satisfied the minds of the directors 
of the Company as to the expediency of making a new 
search for a passage to China in those comparatively 
mild and possibly habitable regions. We know how 
often this observation of Hudson has since been con- 
firmed by later voyagers at diff'erent points of the 
arctic circle and yet our knowledge, after the lapse 
of two hundred and fifty years , in regard to this 
strange phenomenon has hardly advanced one step 
and we are in the same state both of doubt and 
hopeful eff'ort on the subject, as the merchants of 
Amsterdam were on the occasion of the narration 
of our navigator. Science too then as now stepped 
in to substantiate the fact when otherwise it would 
have been incredible , and to encourage the under- 
taking. 

Jn prosecuting this task we have sought the most 
authentic sources of information; and with that view 



have examined the records of the East India Company , 
comprising the registers or books of resolutions of the 
general council of the Company , styled the Council of 
Seventeen , and of the chambers of Amsterdam and 
Zeeland respectively , with some other documents of a 
miscellaneous character , among the Archives of the 
Kingdom at the Hague; v^^here all the books and papers 
of the Company, which were until lately dispersed among 
the different cities where the operations of the different 
chambers were conducted, have been brought together 
and arranged. A copy of the contract between Hudson 
and the Chamber of Amsterdam was found appended 
to a history of the Company , never published , but 
prepared at its request by Mr. P. van Dam who held 
the position of Counsel of the Company for the extra- 
ordinary period of fifty four years, that is, from 1652 
until his death in 1706. The original instrument is 
not to be found. That would have been a precious relic 
to see, but for all the purposes of history the copy thus 
accidentally preserved will answer its place. 

We have also sought for such contemporaneous 
printed accounts as appeared in Holland in regard to 
the voyage. Of these there were, however, only two; 
the Hudson tract of 1612 — 13, and the history of 
Van Meteren, both of which have been known to 
our writers, but their peculiar claims to authenticity 
on the subject of Hudson's voyage have never been 
explained. The former, indeed, has altogether escaped 



notice in this connection. They appeared shortly after 
the voyage was made and when it was yet hoped 
that Hudson was still alive , if, indeed he were not 
so , in fact. One was written in the Latin tongue and the 
other in Dutch : the former has never appeared in English, 
and the latter only through the medium of a French 
translation. It seemed proper , therefore , that we should 
not only give these accounts in English, in full, but 
also the grounds upon which we claimed their authen- 
ticity. To the bibliographer this last part of our labor 
will prove perhaps of some additional interest, as he 
will there see, if we mistake not, how his science 
serves the purposes of historical investigation. The 
intelligent reader need not be referred to the later 
publications , the journal of ,the traitor Juet in Pur- 
chas, and the accounts of De Laet, which have been 
carefully translated and accompanied by suitable notes 
by Hon. George Folsom , in the first volume of the 
second series of the Collections of the New York His- 
torical Society. These authorities are well known and 
must ever remain the chief sources of our knowledge 
as to the incidents of the voyage. They fail us however, 
in regard to the points which we have sought to ex- 
plain. The later publications of VanderDonck and 
others are worse than useless for our purpose, as they 
are not only copyists of the facts of this early period 
but the writer just named is grossly inaccurate in the 
little which he has mentioned on the subject. 



It remains for us to express our infinite obKgations 
to the learned Archivist of the Kingdom of the Nether- 
lands, Dr. R. C. Bakhuizen van der Brink, and to 
M. F. A. G. Campbell Esq. the accomplished Assis- 
tant Librarian of the Royal Library at the Hague , for 
valuable aid in the course of our researches. We are 
also indebted to the kindness of Mr. Frederick Mul- 
ler of Amsterdam for the opportunity of collating the 
different editions of the very rare tract, first published 
in 1612, and thereby of establishing an important piece 
of evidence in the investigation ; and of Mr. J. Schuite- 
maker of Purmerende for the portrait of Dirk van 
Os which embellishes our pages. Our friend J. T. Bodel 
NiJENHuis Esq. of Leyden has also laid us under renewed 
obligations. 

Hen. C. Murphy. 

The Hague, 

April 15, 1859. 



HENRY HUDSON IN HOLLAND 



In having his name given to portions of the New World, 
in a manner which is certain to transmit through all time 
his right to be considered their first European discoverer, 
Hudson has been more fortunate than any other navigator 
except Yespucius, who has the exclusive honor of having 
the name of a continent identihed with his own, and yet 
more fortunate even than he, in regard that his claim to 
the discovery is not a subject of dispute. Hudson's bay and 
Hudson river two points of great geographical interest attest 
his intrepidity as an explorer, and indicate precisely the 
regions , which he first fully made known to the civilized 
world; while there is neither gulf nor stream, island nor 
mainland to carry down to posterity, the name of its dis- 
coverer for Columbus or Cabot or Yerrazzauo or Gomez or 
Cartier; and a single spot suffices to perpetuate their names 
for Davis, Magellan, Champlain, and others who have made 
discoveries along the American continent. But although 
the skill and daring of Hudson have been thus perpetuated 
beyond the lot of his fellows, in monuments more lasting 
than men could otherwise devise, his antecedents and per- 
sonal history, are, on the other hand, less known, than 
those of most of the other navigators just named. For the 



10 HENRY HUDSON IN HOLLAND. 

brief period of five years only he appears upon the stage 
of action, and then perishes amid the scenes of his triumphs 
and at a moment when he and the world believed that he 
had accomplished the darling object of his ambition and of 
the hopes of Northern Europe — a Northerly passage to 
the East Indies. The history of his short career, sudden 
in its commencement, bright in its course, and startling 
and dramatic in its close, is derived from the journals of 
his voyages kept by himself and others and published by 
Purchas. These furnish all that is known of him, except 
some few additional facts , which we have now collected 
from other sources. We know that he was an Englishman , 
but what city gave him birth or what was his lineage are 
matters entirely unknown. We now learn, indeed, for the 
first time, that he had several children, besides the son 
who shared his miserable fate; and possibly, therefore, what 
has become of his descendants may still be wrought out, 
and with it something of his family history. There is 
no portrait of him, not even a contemporaneous print of 
doubtful authenticity, a fact the more remarkable from the 
circumstance that he lived and acquired a celebrity in an 
age, when it was quite the fashion to present to the pub- 
lic pictures of those who merited attention. We are equally 
at a loss to know what circumstances led him into, the path 
of maritime discovery, or for whom it was that he made 
his first two voyages. It only distinctly appears that they 
were m.ade on account of an English Company, which was 
not the association of Sir Thomas Smith, Sir Dudley Digges 
and others, as has sometimes been alleged. ^ In the absence 

1 Mr. Moulton (I. 197), in attempting to correct the statement of Forstcr , 
that the names of the persons who employed Hudson have not heen handed 
down to us, says, that they are mentioned by Purchas. This is a mistake, as 
in the place cited Purchas merely gives the names of Sir Thomas Smith and 
others as the promoters of the voyage of 1610. Indeed we learn from Pur- 
chas, on the contrary, that these individuals were not the persons who employed 



HENRY HUDSON IN HOLLAND. 11 

of positive statements ou the subject we are therefore left 
to conjecture. We do indeed find that a license was on 
the 9th of January 1607 granted to Eichard Penkevel and 
others authorizing them to seek China, Cathay, the Moluccas 
and other places in the East by the way of the North, 
Northwest and Northeast , under the title of // the Collegues 
of the Eellowshipp for the Discovery of the North passage //, 
and the time of the formation of this company and its ob- 
ject agree with the period and design of these two voyages. ^ 
No other association of which we have any knowledge 
existed in England at that time for such purposes, and 
it may well be that it was in their service Hudson was 
eno:ao;ed. 

§1. 



THE INVITATION TO HUDSON AND THE DUTCH 
MERCHANTS. 

During the short period to which out knowledge of Hudson 
is confined he visited Holland and sojourned there several 
months. He left London upon the invitation of the Directors 
of the Dutch East India Company of the Chamber of Am- 
sterdam , to confer with them in regard to another voyage to 
the North on their account. This was during the wiiiter of 

Hudson in 1607 and 1608; for in his account of the fourth voyage for Sir 
Thomas Smith's Company, it is stated that Eohert Bileth Avas engaged in their 
first three voyages. Now the first time that Bileth sailed with Hudson was 
in 1610, as may he seen by comparing the lists in Purchas of Hudson's crews 
on his fijTst two voyages above mentioned. So that Hudson's fourth and last 
voyage was the first one made for that company. In fact the four voyages 
made for Sir Thomas Smith, Sir Dudley Digges and their associates, were 
made in the following order: the first one by Hudson in 1610, and the others 
consecutively by Button, Gibbons and BafBn, and it is in the account which 
Purchas gives of the last of these, that, as we have said, the remark in regard 
to Bileth occurs, to which we have just referred. Purchas his Pilgrimes , 
III. 836. 

1 Kymer's Foedera, VII. 115 (2d Ed.). 



12 HENRY HUDSON IN HOLLAND. 

1608 — 9, after he had returned from his second voyage. His 
skill, resolution and success had then become known in Hol- 
land; we say success, because he had reached, as was supposed 
that tempting region of Arctic exploration, the open Polar 
sea, the anomaly of the North. There were learned men and 
astute merchants in those days in the City of Amsterdam, 
as we will see , who reasoned out the Northeast passage 
in that direction , in consequence of this apparently iceless 
condition of the polar waters , with entire confidence in 
its speedy and successful accomplishment. Hudson was 
no sooner out of employment, therefore, than his pre- 
sence at Amsterdam was requested by the Chamber of the 
East India Company, there established, which comprised 
among its members many enterprising merchants. They had 
however a particular motive in seeking to secure his services. 
They wished to forestal others, and especially their own 
countrymen in the discovery, and thus prevent any inter- 
ference with their chartered monopoly of the East India 
trade. The evidence of this policy distinctly appears in the 
resolutions and proceedings of the general council of all the 
Chambers of the Company, called the Council of Seventeen, 
and carries us back a few years earlier than the time of Hud- 
son's visit, in the history of the country, while it brings to 
our view some of the more promiment individuals connected 
with the great commercial movement which then agitated the 
nation. 

Previous to the revolution , when the United Provinces 
asserted their independence , the Dutch had not extended 
their commercial operations beyond the Mediterranean and 
the Baltic ; but no sooner had they fairly embarked 
in that contest and assumed a national character for 
themselves , than they entered upon the great field of 
foreign enterprise and distant navigation with an ardor 
which soon brought them up to tlie first rank of daring and 



HENRY HUDSON IN HOLLAND. 13 

successful explorers. A large portion of this new impulse 
was due to that element of the population which had emi- 
grated from Antwerp and other commercial and trading cities 
of the Spanish Netherlands, refugees for conscience sake; to 
whom, indeed, much more of the maritime greatness and 
prosperity of the United Provinces are to be attributed than 
has been generally conceded. The commercial history, however, 
of Holland and her sister provinces remains to be written. 
It is for us to mention those persons only who are connected 
with our purpose "with such few facts in relation to them as 
we have been enabled to pick up from scattered quarters. 

Poremost, if not first, among these was Balthazar de Mou- 
cheron of Zeeland, who had established himself as a merchant 
at Yeere, near Middelburg, in that province. His father, a 
person of noble descent, emigrated from Normandy to Ant- 
werp. Balthazar was born in the latter place but fled from 
thence on account of religious persecution to Zeeland. He 
there embarked in the Muscovy trade, and one of his vessels 
having proceeded as far as Archangel in the year 1584, the 
branch of the Dwina upon which that city is situated was 
from that circumstance afterwards known amoug the Dutch 
as Moucheron's river. Having received favorable reports from 
his factors in that region relative to a passage to the Indies 
by the sea of Tartary , he memorialized the States of Hol- 
land and Zeeland to send out an expedition for the purpose 
of exploring that route , ofi'ering on his own part to join 
in the expense upon condition of being permitted to parti- 
cipate proportion ably in the future profits. The result will 
be referred to presently. De Moucheron subsequently en- 
gaged in the trade to the East Indies by the way of the 
Cape of Good Hope: but was compelled to relinquish it on 
his private account, by the incorporation of the East India 
Company to which the exclusive privilege of that trade by 
the then known routes was granted. He was however, named 



14 HENRY HUDSON IN HOT.T.AND. 

by the charter, a director of the Company for the Chamber 
ofZeeland, but it was without his consent, and he never acted 
in that capacity. Mr. Lambrechtsen's conjecture that the Zeeland 
directors were deterred from aiding the expedition sent out 
under Hudson //by reason of information received from their 
colleague Balthazar Moucheron , of the unfortunate result of 
the former voyages//, is- therefore not well founded. Had De 
Moucheron been a director his course would probably have 
been quite different, as any hostility on his part would have 
been foreign to his enterprising character. The last trace which 
we find of him is in the latter part of the year 1609, at 
Paris , where he had gone for the purpose of establishing 
a trade to the Cape of Good Hope under the sanction of the 
King of France, at the same time that Le Maire, Spilbergen 
and others were assembled there for the purpose of furthering 
the wishes of Henry in relation to the organization of a 
Erench East India Company. ^ 

There was another eminent merchant in the Netherlands, 
a Walloon by birth, who was also actively engaged at this 
time, in nautical aff'airs. This was Isaac Le Maire of Am- 
sterdam, a native of Tournay in Hainault, who had by 
means of his brothers, established commercial connections with 

1 Letters of T. van Aerssen , agent of the States General in France , dated 
at Paris the 16th and 25th December 1609, in the archives at the Hague. 
De Moucheron has been curiously enough mixed up with the voyage of Hudson , 
as may be seen by consulting our leading histories , probably from the statement 
of Mr. Lambrechtsen above referred to (Nieuw Nederland, p. 9.); though that 
remark as we have observed is a mere surmise. We have therefore carefully 
examined the Books of Resolutions of the Chamber of Zeeland , which give the 
names of all the Directors attending each meeting of the Chamber, from the 
organization of the East India Company until long after the time in question , 
in order to ascertain the truth on the subject. The result of the investigation 
was very unexpectedly the revelation of the fact as above stated of his not having 
accepted tlie post of Director, as it appears he never attended a single meeting 
of the Cbambcr. Those who wish to refer to the authorities for the few incidents 
which we have been enabled to collect in regard to him from printed sources 
may consult La Grande C/ironique Ancienne et Moderne de Ilollande , Zelande 
etc., par Jean Francois Le Petit, II. p. 651 ; and J)e Navorscher ,^\.\>.<^^^. 



HENRY HUDSON IN HOLLAND. 15 

Spain, Italy and Portugal, one of them residing in each of 
those countries. He also entered into the East India trade 
at its outset, before the incorporation of the General Com- 
pany, and was consequently by the charter of that Company, 
according to the plan upon which it was formed of uniting 
all existing interests, constituted a director for the Chamber 
of Amsterdam, but apparently, as in the case of De Mou- 
cheron, against his will. He appears, however, to have 
acted as such for a year or two; but in 1604, he ceased 
to do so and began on the contrary to set on foot various 
enterprises, having for their object the discovery of new 
routes to the East Indies, in opposition to the monopoly 
of the Company. One of the expeditions which he equipped 
at the expense of the King of Erance was designed to 
attempt the Northeast passage, and, about a month after 
Hudson had left Holland , actually sailed in his wake. 
After the return of this vessel he repaired to Paris where 
as we have already said he had gone to pursue his negotia- 
tions with King Henry in relation to forming a Erench East 
India Company. Delayed first by the opposition of Sully 
in this project, he was compelled entirely to abandon it by 
the assassination of the King in the following year. He 
was more successful in accomplishing his immediate purpose 
in the expedition of which he was half-owner, fitted out in 
the year 1616 under Schouten and Jacob Le Maire, his 
son , who discovered the straits of Le Maire and Cape Horn , 
thus in fact opening to private enterprise two new routes to 
the East Indies not mentioned and therefore not prohibited 
to others by the terms of the East India Company's Charter. 
Eew men in any age have shown such an energetic spirit 
in the advancement of maritime discovery as Le Maire. 
He became well acquainted with Hudson during the stay 
of the latter in Holland, and readily adopted his views in 
regard to the Northern passage. He was only prevented by 



16 HENRY HUDSON IN HOLLAND. 

accident from securing to himself the services of that navi- 
gator for his own expedition to the North. 

Distinguished in another and not less important branch 
of Dutch navigation , that of collecting the necessary nau- 
tical information and directing attention to the importance 
of the work, was a third individual, also from the Flemish 
provinces, who may be styled as regards his qualifications 
and his labors in the paths just indicated, the Hakluyt of 
the Netherlands. Like his great English prototype, Peter 
Plancius was also a minister of the Church. He was 
born in Planders, but was compelled in the latter part of 
the sixteenth century, during the height of the troubles 
there, to leave his native country and seek an asylum in 
the North , whither he fled and became minister of the Ee- 
formed Church at Amsterdam. He was equally renowned 
in his day for his geographical knowledge and for his 
theological zeal in opposition to the religious tenets of Ar- 
minius and the Eemonstrants. We find him interesting 
himself in the schemes of William Usselinx for the esta- 
blishment of a West India Company as early as the year 
1600. ^ He was zealous in collecting information from sea- 
faring men and other practical sources, and diligent in 
promoting by his advice and knowledge all enterprises of 
discovery. His reasoning in support of Hudson's views on 
the subject of an open northern sea was curious and will 
be adverted to in its proper place. 

There were three other persons, all probably of Batavian 
origin, well representing that ancient element of the popu- 
lution during this period of maritime activity in the United 
Provinces, who were all more or less connected with the 
particular voyage of Hudson. These were Dirck van Os, 
Pieter Dirkszoon Hasselaer and Jan Janszoon Carel de 

i Vau Meteren, Boek 27. 



HENRY HUDSON IN HOl.T-AND. 1-7 

oude, or Senior. These individuals serve as a link to unite 
that voyage with the earlier ones sent out by the Dutch to 
the North , inasmuch as they were interested in the latter 
on their private account, and were also members of the East 
India Company of the Chamber of Amsterdam at the time of 
the engagement of Hudson. But Dirck van Os presents the 
particular claim upon our attention of being the only one 
of them who is found in treaty with the navigator ; thus 
leading us to the conviction that he was probably one of 
the leading spirits of the enterprise , as he was of the ne- 
gotiation on the part of the Company. He was a man of 
enlarged views and of a laborious disposition. He was the 
originator and head, until his death in 1615, of one of the first 
great undertakings to drain the extensive lakes of Holland 
and to convert them into arable land, that of the Beemster, a 
work with which another celebrated name, William Usselincx , 
is also associated, i Hasselaer who was from Haarlem and 
had distinguished himself among its defenders , during its 
memorable siege, was at the time of which we speak a mem- 
ber of the municipal council of the city of Amsterdam. '^ Of 
Carei we have been enabled to find nothing beyond his con- 
nection with the enterprises here mentioiied. 

^ BedijkiDg , Opkomst en Bloei van de Beemster. Door I. Bouman. pp. 31 
and 135. 

^ The character of Hasselaer may be judged of from an incident at the siege 
of Haarlem , at which he was an ensign hearer. When that city surrendered and 
the Spaniards hasely put a large number of the citizens to death , contrary to 
the pledge which they had given them of life , they made search after Pieter 
Dirkszoon Hasselaer , but apprehended his brother in his stead by mistake. 
Peter then made himself known, saying. « If it is the standard bearer whom 
yon want , let this person go , I am the man. " The name of Hasselaer is fa- 
mous in the annals of that siege , for it was Catharine van Hasselaer , a rich 
widow , who raised a regiment of three hundred of her own sex , who fought 
and worked as bravely and as assiduously as any of the male defenders of the 
city. There is a fine engraved portrait of Pieter Dirkszoon Hasselaer in AA^age- 
naar's History of Amsterdam, where may also be foimd some particulars of 
his life. 



18 HENRY HUDSON IN HOU.AND. 

Besides these persons there may have been others who were 
associated with the earliest voyages to the North and were 
also promoters of that of Hudson ; but if there were any 
such, it is impossible now to designate them. The records 
of the time are very unsatisfactory and it is only here and 
there disconnectedly that one can find anything to throw 
light upon the subject. The inquirer has to grope his way 
through new and obscure passages and be content with a small 
recompense for his labor. 

§ n. 

THE FIRST EXPEDITIONS TO THE NORTH , THE ORIGIN OF 

THE EAST INDIA COMPANY AND ITS POLICY 

IN REGARD TO THE NORTH PASSAGE. 

The authorities agree in attributing to the efi'orts of Bal- 
thazar De Moucheron the first movement in the United 
Provinces which resulted in any actual attempt for the pur- 
poses of maritime discovery. This was the expedition of 
1594 , which was despatched by the Provinces of Holland 
and Zeeland to search for a passage to the Northeast. In 
that movement De Moucheron was more than seconded by 
other individuals, including the three persons last men- 
tioned. To that expedition, Van Os , Hasselaer and Carel, 
in conjunction with Jacob Valcke, C. Roeltius and perhaps 
others,^ added at their own expense a third vessel which 
was placed under the command of William Barendszoon, a 
native of the island of Terschellin(>-, then a resident of Am- 
sterdam , whose name and fate are to be forever identified 
with the history of Arctic discovery. On the failure of the 
first expedition , another was sent out the following year by 
the two provinces, without the cooperation of the merchants, 

^ The authorities on this point arc collected in the GescJdedenis der Stich- 
iing van de Vereenigde 0. I. Compagnie etc. , door I. A. Van der Chys. 
pp. 25—6, note, 2d Ed. Leyden, 1857. 



HENRY HUDSON IN HOLLAND. 19 

but with no better success. The two provinces at length 
discouraged , gave up all further trials , but the States 
General offered a reward of ten thousand dollars to any 
private persons who might roake the discovery. In the year 
1596 the merchants just named made a third attempt 
alone, when the sufferings of the crew of one of the ships, 
who were compelled to winter in Nova Zembla, and the 
consequent death of Barenlszoon , without obtaining any fa- 
vorable results, seemed to preclude all further efforts in that 
direction. But a marked success had in the mean time, 
attended an enterprise of another association composed of Van 
Os, Hasselaer, Carel and others, in the opposite quarter, — 
a success which was eventually to shape the commercial 
character of the jN'etherlands and to lay the foundation of 
the prosperity which the country enjoys at the present day. 
It was indeed the beginning of that chain of circumstani^es 
which led to the discovery of the Hudson river, and more 
remotely to the settlement of our country by the Dutch. 

In the same year with the sailing of the expedition of 
1594, the three energetic men whom we have named, asso- 
ciated themselves with six others, namely, Hendrik Hudden, 
Eeynier Pauw, Jan Poppen, Hendrik Buyk, Syvert Pieterszoon 
Sem , and Arend ten Grootenhuys, in a company called the 
// Compagnie van Verre//, or Company of Foreign Parts, for 
the purpose of carrying on a trade to the East Indies, by 
the way of the Cape of Good Hope, in defiance of the bull 
of the Pope and the power of the enemies of their country , 
the Spaniards and their conquered dependents, the Portuguese. 
The association caused four ships to be built for the purpose 
of this trade , whence the members were called sometimes 
the Bewindhebbers or Managers of the nevj ships, and des- 
patched them on their voyage in 1595, under the command 
of Gornelis Houtman. The speculation was entirely successful 
and yielded remunerative profits to the owners of the vessels. 



20 HENRY HUDSON IN HOLLAND. 

Every obstacle in the way of reaching the dazzling East 
semed at once to have been overcome and the coveted wealth 
of the Indies to lie within the grasp of the adventurers. A 
sudden fury for entering into this commerce seized the 
entire maritime interest of the Republic. A sluice way was 
opened into which the whole commercial body rushed like a 
body of waters. Ships were fitted out from the diflerent parts 
of Zeeland and North and South Holland, in great numbers. 
The Erench ambassador , De Buzanval , on the %7 August 
1597, after the return of Houtman , wrote home from Hol- 
land ; // all these countries , which are full of ships and 
sailors , are running there like fire. // Of these different 
parties , some made short voyages and realized enormous 
profits; others enriched themselves by the capture of Spanish 
and Portuguese carracks, which they did not hesitate to at- 
tack , wherever they met them , without regard to disparity 
of force. It was right thus to cripple the enemy, and to 
transfer the scene of war which had been confined within the 
borders of the oppressed to the very seat of wealth of the 
proud oppressor. Every Dutch ship despatched to the Indies 
became a privateer, and every Spanish and Portugese vessel 
which could be taken was a lawful prize. Some of the 
adventurers, less fortunate than the others in the length of 
their voyages or in obtaining full cargoes, in consequence 
of their arriving in the Indies after the market had been 
stripped by others of their countrymen who had been there 
before them, and equally unfortunate in taking booty, obtained 
inadequate returns. In order to prevent this inequality on the 
one hand, and to make the new element of power a more 
effective means of attack against the enemy on the other, 
the Republic determined to merge all the diff'erent interests 
into one by the incorporation of a General Company, making 
the several proprietors its managers. The project was opposed 
by many of them, but without efi'ect; and finally in 1602, 



HENRY HUDSON IN HOIJ.AND. 21 

the charter was passed, and the Dutch East India Company 
organized. 

This charter modelled the company somewhat on the plan 
of the union of the provinces, with distinct assemblies and 
parts, dividing it into six branches, called Chambers, each 
of which was managed by its own Directors, in different 
portions of the country, one in Amsterdam comprising one 
half its capital ; a second in Zeeland , with one fourth of 
the capital; two in South Holland, with one eighth of the 
capital subdivided between Delft and Rotterdam ; and two 
also in North Holland, with the remaining eighth part of 
the capital, also subdivided between Hoorn and Enkhuizen. 
These Chambers , were called respectively the Chambers of 
Amsterdam, Zeeland, Delft, Rotterdam, Hoorn and Enk- 
huizen. A general council of seventeen directors chosen by 
the respective chambers from among themselves, were by a 
majority of votes to determine all voyages; Amsterdam choo- 
sing eight, Zeeland four, and the other chambers one member 
each, and the seventeenth being chosen by lot by the Cham- 
bers of Zeeland, the Maas, and North Holland. This arrange- 
ment was a device to secure the rights of the smaller 
chambers against the power of that of Amsterdam. Each 
locality was secured in its proportion of the business of the 
Company , and each Chamber was to have the exclusive 
management of the ships sent out by it, and to be responsible 
for all the property coming into its possession. The Company 
was authorised to trade to the East Indies by the Cape of 
Good Hope and the Straits of Magellan, the only routes 
then known , for the period of twenty one years. The charter 
contained a very singular clause, which we refer to now, 
because it will explain a phrase in the contract with Hudson ; 
that is, it required an account to be kept of each ten years 
operations and permitted each stockholder at the end of any 
such term of ten years to withdraw his capital if he chose 



22 HENRY HUDSON IN HOI,LAND. 

SO to do. The number of persons who were named "Directors 
was at the outset twenty tliree for the Chamber of Amster- 
dam, including all the Members of the Conipagnie van Verre^ 
except Hendrik Hudden , who had died in the mean time; 
fourteen for Zeeland; eleven for Delft; nine for Eotterdam; 
four for Hooni ; and eleven for Enkhuizen. The charter was 
construed, if not by the Company, by others to limit its 
privileges to carrying on the India trade, by the two routes 
particularly mentioned, namely, by way of the Cape of Good 
Hope and by the Straits of Magellan, and to leave the power 
in the States to grant to others similar privileges by new 
routes which might thereafter be opened. Hence it was that 
Le Maire , after leaving the direction of the Company , or- 
ganised, as we have said, expeditions for further exploration ; 
and that other parties, entered at once into negotiations with 
the States for the purpose of prosecuting the particular na- 
vigation in the North, though without success. The Company 
itself shortly after its organization took into consideration 
the expediency of making an atempt to explore the ^Northern 
passage and of soliciting the necessary privileges from the 
government. It is quite apparent therefore that fears or hopes 
of the opening of that route still lurked in the minds of some 
of the Directors. The Council of Seventeen , determined 
finally that it was inexpedient to make the trial. This 
determination was , however , accompanied by a remarkable 
resolution which, while it most pointedly confirms the idea 
that expectations of the ultimate opening of the Northern 
passage existed in that body, also furnishes us with the key 
to the policy, which led the Company subsequently to send 
for Hudson , and to employ him on that very service. The 
final action of the Council of Seventeen on this subject took 
place on the 7th of August 1603, and is thus entered on 
the minutes: //It is likewise for deliberation and resolution, 
whether the voyage by the North shall also again be under- 



HENRY HUDSON IN HOLLAND. 23 

taken and negotiations be had with the Noble Lords States 
in regard to terms and privileges for that purpose, seeing 
that some private persons have already been in communication 
with said Lords ; the more so , as this matter was at the 
meeting of the Seventeen, on the 27th of Eebuary last past 
postponed, as appears by the seventeenth section of the pro- 
ceedings of that meeting. // In the margin is the following 
disposition of the subject: // The contents hereof are rejected, 
as it is deemed not serviceable to the Company; and therefore, 
iy this navigation should he undertaken by any private per- 
sons ^ it ought to he hy all means prevented. // i The Com- 
pany, in pursuance of this resolution, accordingly, abandoned 
the idea of the Northern route and confined itself to the 
South. In this trade it realized immediately enormous profits, 
dividing among its stockholders , thirty seven per cent for 
its first two years operations and seventy - five per cent for 
the next two years. It had at the time of the visit of Hudson, 
grown already to be a mighty power, having forty large ships, 
besides other smaller vessels in its service, armed with six 
hundred pieces of cannon and manned by five thousand 
sailors. The government had also strengthened it by new 
enactments and those persons who disputed the construction, 
that the charter of the Company was exclusive, which, in- 
deed, if it were true, was so only by implication and not 
by its terms , and who therefore engaged in the trade on 
their own account, were, by a decree of the States General 
of the first of July 1606 , expressly prohibited from naviga- 
ting by the Cape of Good Hope and the Straits of Magellan; 
and in the following September by another decree, the sub- 
jects of the Netherlands were prohibited from carrying on 
the trade from foreign countries. Thus the monopoly seemed 
to be firmly established and the profits of the company to 
be commensurate with the most visionary hopes of its raem- 

' Register der Resolutien van de Seventiene. 



24 HENRY HUDSON IN HOLLAND. 

bers. But great success is quite sure to produce dangerous 
rivals in all affairs of this kind, and while it excites the 
envy perhaps and taxes the ingenuity of those whom the 
law has excluded from a participation in its advantages also 
frequently gives birth in foreign countries to efforts which 
the law cannot reach. 

' § in. 

ANOTHER POWER, IN QUEST OF THE RICHES OF THE IN- 
DIES, DISTURBS Hudson's negotiations with the 

COMPANY, WHICH FAIL, ARE 1?ENEWED AND 
FINAT-LY CONSUMMATED , IN CONSEQUENCE. 

Great events are rarely the result of a single cause, but 
rather of a combination of causes and of accidental circum- 
stances. So was it in regard to the voyage of Hudson , and 
we are now to allude to a singular train of incidents, which 
led to his immediate employment by the Company and with- 
out which we should have been ignorant of the particular 
circumstances connected with the negotiations between them. 
The success attending the first operations of the Company 
had attracted the attention of Henry IV of France, who, 
in consequence, became desirous of establishing a similar 
association in his own kingdom. Hitherto the expeditions 
to Canada of which that monarch had been a promoter, had 
been productive only of disappointment to himself and loss 
of life to the adventurers, and he seemed now anxious to 
try his fortunes in the East, by means of the services of 
experienced persons from Holland. Le Maire was recom- 
mended to him as a merchant both of great experience in 
the India trade, and of wealth and credit, who would 
])robably assist him in the enterprise. The King determined 
to employ him if possible, and for that purpose, confided 
the execution of his plan to M. Jeannin , one of his ambas- 



HENRY HUDSON IN HOLLAND. 25 

sadors at the Hague, whom he had sent there to aid in 
the counsels of the States-General in their pending nego- 
tiations for a peace with Spain. The envoy immediately 
made overtures on the subject to Le Maire, who was, on 
his part, quite willing to enter into the schemes of Henry. 
Le Maire was of opinion, howerer, that it was better to 
wait the issue of the pending negotiations for a peace, 
before organising the Erench Company, in as much as those 
negotiations might result in the adoption of an article in 
the treaty, prohibiting altogether the India trade to the 
Dutch, in which case it would be very easy to establish a 
new Company in IVance from among the members of the 
then broken-up Dutch Company. Jeannin appears to have 
acquiesced in the delay, although he did not altogether 
approve of the policy of it, because it might subject the 
course of his sovereign to the imputation of selfish motives 
in urging the peace, if such a provision should be inserted 
in the treaty. ' While these parties wese thus waiting the 
conclusion of the negotiations between the governments, — 
a momentous period in the history of the country , — 
and while the East India Company was quietly realizing as 
we have seen its enormous profits from the new trade, the 
result of Hudson's a^an^voya^ei became known, in which he 
had reached the eighty first degree of North latitude, being 
the highest point then yet attained by any navigator. The 
news at once disturbed the smooth course of the Directors, 
whose fears were now excited, lest the Northeast passage 
might indeed be accomplished by others, and with it might 
disappear the value of their franchise. In pursuance, 
therefore, of the line of policy which was laid down in 
their resolution of August 1603, of preventing such a 

1 Negociations du president Jeannin. Lettre de M. de Villeroy au 
Sieur Jeannin, du 16 Fevrier 1608; and Lettre de M. Jemmin a M. de 
Villeroy du, 14 Mars 1608. 



26 HENRY HUDSON IN HOLLAND. 

result if possible, they sent for Hudson, who repaired, as 
before stated to Amsterdam m the latter part of the year 
1608, in order to consult with them in regard to the 
practicability of the Northern passage, i The observations 
which Hudson had made during his former voyages and 
which he now communicated were new, and presented 
an eighth wonder of the world. He explained his experience to 
be in favor of an open sea in the extreme North , because 
having been as high up as latitude eighty-one, the further 
North he had gone, the less cold he had found; and, instead 
of the land at the hio-hest latitude which he had attained 
not being covered with grass and there not being any 
animals there except beasts of prey and such as live on 
flesh alone, he had observed there both herbage and different 
species of animals which live solely upon the productions 
of the land, thereby proving the existence of such produc- 
tions and a consequent amelioration of the climate in those 
extreme res^ions. He remarked further that in order to 
reach this milder climate of the Artie circle, instead of 
exploring the sea-shore in latitude seventy to seventy-four , 
as had been done in the previous voyages of the Dutch , 

1 Negotiations du President Jeannin. Lett re au roi par M. Jeannin le 
52 Janvier 1609, sur la recherche du passage du Nord. M. Jeannin does not speak 
of Hudson by name , but calls him an English pilot. Were there not other proofs 
sufficient to establish the identity of this person mth Hudson , the production , 
which we are now enabled to make of the written agreement between him and the 
Directors of the Company of Amsterdam must be conclusive upon that point- 
This instrument was signed, on the eighth of January 1608, a few days before 
the date of M. Jeannin's letter , in which he speaks of the negotiations , which 
had been broken off, having just before been renewed. M. Jeannin also says, 
that this English pilot had already made two voyages in search of the pas- 
sage by the North, and had reached the height of eighty-one degrees North; 
whence we are at no loss to recognise Henry Hudson as the individual 
intended. The letters of M. Jeannin are full of interest on this subject. 
Mr. Berg is the only writer within our observation who makes any allusion 
to them in this connection. De Gids , New Series T. 540. It is to these 
despatches of M. Jcaimin that we are largely indebted for Our details in rela- 
tion to tlie negotiations of Hudson with the Company. 



HENRY HUDSON IN HOLLAND. 27 

and where they had been caught by the ice, which always 
makes most near the land , and prevented from proceding 
further, it was necessary to push boldly into the open sea, 
where the greater depth of the water and the agitation of 
the waves hindered the formation of ice, and to keep 
therein until the eighty-third degree was reached, or even 
a point further North when the navigator turning Easterly 
must seek the desired passage through the Straits of Anian. ^ 
These observations of Hudson , so opposed to all previous 
experience in regard to the Northern regions and to the 
general belief were sustained on philosophical principles by 
Plancius. This cosmographer argued, that the sun shining 
on the pole during five months constantly, though its heat 
is feeble, produces in consequence of its uninterrupted con- 
tinuance for that long period , a higher degree of temperature 
and imparts more permanent warmth to the earth, and so 
makes it more suitable for the habitation of man and beast, 
than it does in latitudes further South, where it rises and 
sets daily, and where the heat communicated by day is 
thrown off at night. There is therefore, he said, an inter- 
mediate line of latitude between the pole and equator, where 
the cold is greatest, and on either side of which, as well 
going towards the pole as the equator, the cold gradually 
diminishes. This point of extreme frigidity, he fixed at the 
sixty-sixth degree. In illustration of his views , he instanced 

1 This open sea at the North pole has hitherto only served to tantalise 
hoth the enterprising and the curious. Its existence, recently again confirmed 
hy our lamented countryman , Dr. Kane, from a different point of exploration , has 
heen repeatedly asserted hy voyagers who have visited that region since Hud- 
son. Four years ouly after him, in 1612, Thomas Marmaduke sailed from 
Hull in the ship Hopewell and reached the eighty second degree of North 
latitude ; hut the highest point was gained hy James Bisbro-uoi , who sailed 
from Liverpool in 1765 and attained the extraordinary latitude of 83° 40', 
where he found the sea still open to the North. Dr. HameVs England and 
Russia , translated by J. S. Leigh , p, 367. Whatever future exploration may 
disclose on this subject , the idea of the open Polar Sea undoubtedly originated 
with Henry Hudson. 



28 HENRY HUDSON IN HOLLAND. 

the case of a small fire kept a long time in one place having 
more power to warm than a large one which is frequently 
kindled and suffered to barn only a short time at each lighting. 
The Amsterdam directors declared themselves satisfied in 
regard to the expediency of sending out an expedition, but 
said they were not prepared to do so during the coming season. 
They, therefore, requested Hudson to return to Amsterdam 
the next year and obtained from him a promise to that effect. 
The reason of this propesed delay is to be found in the fact 
that it was not competent for the Chamber of Amsterdam 
alone to bind the whole Company. The power of sending 
out ships was vested in the Council of Seventeen, which only 
met two or three times a year: and the next meeting of that 
body would not take place until the twenty - fifth of the 
following March and then would be held at Middelburg in 
Zeeland. Its determination upon the subject would therefore, 
even if favorable, have been too late to enable a vessel, to 
be equipped early enough to sail that year, especially as it 
was insisted it ought to leave in March, and that one cause 
of the failure of previous attempts was leaving it till summer 
before the navigators left, when they found themselves by the 
time they had reached the high latitudes , surprised by the 
formation of new ice and stopped, in consequence, from going 
further. The hesitation , however, of the Amsterdam directors 
to embark at once in the enterprise had well nigh changed 
the whole character of the voyage of Hudson, and it was 
only by an accident that the discovery of Hudson's river, 
did not enure to the glory of Henry the Great, and the 
newly discovered country become a New France, instead of 
a New Netherland. What would have been the destiny of 
the land, had such been the case, it is unnecessary here to 
contemplate, though the circumstances which we are to relate 
must give rise to curious speculations in inquisitive minds 
on that subject. 



HENRY HUDSON IN HOLLAND. 29 

The conferences of Hudson and the Directors took place 
during the pause in the negotiations between the Trench 
ambassador and Le Maire. The presence of the distinguished 
seaman in Amsterdam and the object of his visit were known 
to the latter, who watched his proceedings closely, and who as 
soon as the directors dismissed him, held secret interviews 
with him for the purpose of engaging him in the service 
of the King of Erance for the same exploration. Hudson 
appears to have entertained the proposal and to have given 
Le Maire all the information , which he had imparted to the 
Directors on the subject of the climate in the North. Le Maire, 
immediately communicated the facts to Jeannin and proposed 
to him that King Henry should have the exploration made 
in his own name, offering //to furnish the vessel and the 
men unless His Majesty should wish to employ some persons 
of his own , with those of experience in former voyages whom 
he would furnish , and saying that in order to accomplish 
the undertaking not more than three or four thousand crowns 
would be necessary, which sum he desired to receive from 
His Majesty, because he did not as a private individual feel 
inclined to expend so much , and did not dare to commu- 
nicate the matter to any body else, because the East India 
Company was fearful above all things of being forestalled in 
this design. He did not venture to speak to the English- 
man except in secret. If the passage should be found it 
would greatly facilitate the formation of a Company.// Jean- 
nin conferred at the same time with Plancius, who happened 
to be then at the Hague , without however apprising him of 
the plans of his master and heard from his own lips the 
confirmatory views of the cosmographer. On the 25th of 
January 1609, he wrote a letter to the king detailing the 
information which he had received and venturing in very 
courtly style to recommend the scheme. //It is,// said he, 
// for Your Majesty to command what is your pleasure for 



30 HENRY HUDSON IN HOLT,A!^D. 

me to do in the premises. It is true the success of this 
undertaking cannot be promised with certainty, but Le Maire 
has long been making inquiries as to what results could 
be expected from this enterprise, and he is regarded as a 
prudent and industrious man. Then , much will not be 
hazarded. When Ferdinand received the opinion of Chris- 
topher Columbus and caused three ships to be equipped for 
him in order to make a voyage to the West Indies, the 
enterprise seemed at that time more doubtful, and all the 
other Powers to whom that man had applied ridiculed it 
and declared it impossible ; yet what great fruits has it pro- 
duced! It is the opinion of Plancius and other geographers 
that there are other lands which have not yet been discovered 
and which God may be reserving for the glory and advantage 
of other princes, not willing to bestow all upon Spain alone. 
Even if nothing should come of it , it will always be a 
laudable thing, and the regret will not be great, since so 
little will be risked. // The interviews between Le Maire and 
Hudson became known however to the Amsterdam Directors 
and as Le Maire had apprehended would be the result, in 
case of such a discovery, they immediately recalled Hudson, 
and entered into negotiations with him anew. The circum- 
stances are told by Jeannin in a postscript which is remark- 
able for its proposing another expedition. // This letter being 
finished, //it reads,// and on the point of being sent off by 
me to Your Majesty, Le Maire has written me again that 
some of the East India Company having been informed that 
the Englishman had interviews secretly with him, were ap- 
prehensive that he wished to employ him himself to discover 
this passage, and they have therefore renewed their negotia- 
tions with him to undertake the voyage the present year, 
the Directors of the Chamber of Amsterdam having written 
to that efi'ect to the other Chambers of the same Company 
for their approval with the declaration that if it be refused, 



HENUY HUDSON IN HOLT, AND. 31 

they will undertake it themselves. Le Maire docs not however 
cease to exhort Your Majesty to this enterprise , informing 
me that he has a pilot who has already made this same voyage, 
and is more experienced and capable than the Englishman. // ^ 
The arguments of Hudson and Plancius had their effect 
upon the French Monarch as well as the Company. Upon 
the receipt of this letter, the King wrote to the Ambas- 
sador, that though he considered Le Maire's project very 
doubtful and uncertain, yet it was so honorable and might 
be so advantageous if it should succeed , he was well 
satisfied to make the trial and to engage in it in his own 
name, if Jeannin and Le Maire judged he ought to do so; 
and in order to carry the design into effect he sent him 
a draft for four thousand crowns. - But the money came 
too late to employ Hudson. Indeed the agreement between 
him and the Amsterdam Directors had been completed already 
some time before the writing of M. Jeannin's letter to the 
King The plan of Le Maire was, however, carried into 
execution by the employment of another person in his stead. 
A vessel was equipped , on behalf of the King but not in 
his name, and sailed to the North on the fifth of May, 
about one month after the sailing of Hudson ; ^ but as no 
particular account of the voyage has been ever given to 
the public, it must have entirely failed, not only in the 
object of its search, but in adding anything to the sum of 

1 Neg. du Pres. Jeannin. Lettre du 25 Janvier, 1609 ut supra. 

2 Ibid. Lettre du roi dn vingt-kuitieme Fevrier. 1609. 

3 Ibid. Lettre de M. Jeannin a M. de Villeroy du huitierae de Mai 1609. 
The correspondence of Jeannin was first printed at Paris in 1656 in folio. 
Another edition appeared in 4 vols. 12mo. at Leyden in 1696 ; and a third 
was published at Paris in 1819 in 3 vols. 8vo. Two other editions have since 
been published , with corrections from the original manuscript in the Bibliotheque 
Imperiale. We have used that of M. Buchon in his " Choix de Chroniques 
etMemoires sur I'histoire de Prance//, Paris 1838, 8vo; but, as our references 
are to the dates of the letters where they may be found , and not to the pages 
of the book, no difficulty will be found in consulting any of these editions. 



32 HENRY HUDSON IN HOLT.AND. 

geographical knowledge. Before its return Jeannin had left 
the country. ^ 

The pilot whom Le Maire so highly commended, whoever 
he was and whatever his skill, was of a different spirit 
from Hudson , who was the very soul of the expedition 
under his command, and who had great resources within 
himself against the extraordinary obstacles which beset his 
course. Our navigator when he entered upon the voyage, 
felt that he had something more to do than to discharge 
merely the orders of his employers; he was to endeavour to 
accomplish the object they had in view by the exercise, 
in extraordinary contingencies, of an intelligent discretion, 
and not in any event to be content without extending the 
limits of known exploration. The results of these two 
attempts made at the same time, and with the same general 
object in view and under similar circumstances, illustrate 

1 The expense of the equipment of this vessel was fifteen thousand livres 
being five thousand more than had been remitted to Jeannin. Besides this 
amount the captain received a present of three hundred florins on the part of 
the King. Le Maire put a venture in the ship of ten thousand livres in 
merchandize and cash on his own account. Jeannin who had an interview 
vnt the Captain speaks of him as a man well acquainted with navigation and 
of great experience. The expedition sailed with a letter of credence from 
Prince Maurice and was not known to have been sent out on account of the 
King of France by any other persons ia Holland than Jeannin, Le Maire and 
his brother and the Captain. An examination of the French Archives might 
disclose something of interest on the subject of this expedition. 

It appears from the account of Northern Russia by Isaac Massa in the 
Hudson tract of 1612 that Le Maire sent out another expedition to the North 
in 1612, and solicited Massa to join it, who refused. The whole paragraph 
is interesting and we give it in his own words from the Latin edition of 1612 
which is more full as to this point than the others. " As the most excessive 
cold prevails in the straits of Nova Zembla , it is not wonderful that in conse- 
quence of the narrowness of those straits, quantities of very strong and thick 
ice are accumulated and heaped up to sixty or at least fifty paces in height, 
as was measured in this very year by those who were sent on a voyage there 
by Isaac Le Maire in a small vessel, which he wished me to accompany, but 
without avail ; for I know very well and can demonstrate that that route is 
not open and that all those who undertake it uill be deceived unless they 
attempt it some other way. " 



HENRY HUDSON IN HOT.LAND. 33 

most strikingly the difference between the mere pilot, per- 
forming a prescribed task, and the zealous discoverer, such 
as Hudson was, ardent for success. While the one seems 
to have turned his bark homeward when the icebergs loomed 
up before him , with nothing to report to his employers 
except an entire failure, the other, nothing daunted or 
discouraged , when he saw he could no longer pursue the 
route marked out for him , boldly steered into other and 
more remote regions, discovered a new and beautiful country 
and, at the same time, contributed something to the great 
cause in which he was engaged , by demonstrating that no 
passage to the Indies existed at that point. 

§ IV. 

THE CONTRACT BETWEEN HUDSON AND THE COMPANY; 
AND THE INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE VOYAGE. 

Although the enterprise in which Hudson had now engaged 
was at the expense and for the advantage of the East India 
Company . it was nevertheless through his advice and en- 
couragement that it was undertaken. It is not, therefore, 
surprising that he should have had some views of his own 
in regard to the voyage, distinct from those of the Directors 
and should have followed them when the occasion served. 
He, indeed, is charged with having violated the instructions 
which he received from them, in turning Westwardly when 
he found himself prevented by the ice from sailing to the 
North of Nova Zembla , and it must be confessed with some 
show of truth. ^ The object of the Directors in sending him 

1 'I Hudson having run out to sea and laid his course along the North 
coast towards Nova Zembla , and having found the sea there on the 14th of 
May as full of ice as it was in the previous years , determined , contrary to 
his instructions to seek another route through Davis' Straits , whither he 
accordingly sailed. « MS. history of the East India Company hy Mr. P. van 
Bam , in the Archives at the Hague. 

3 



o4 HENKY HUDSON IN HOMAND. 

on the voyage , was , as sufficiently appears from the cir- 
cumstances which preceded his employment, solely to discover 
the Northeast passage in order to secure the exclusive benefit 
to tlie company of that route. We are not left however to 
inference as to their intentions. The contract entered into 
between them and Hudson distinctly states that the desti- 
nation of the vessel was to the North and thence around the 
North side of the island of Nova Zembla; and the instruc- 
tions, after repeating this destination and to the straits of 
Anian, expressly prohibit Hudson from attempting any other 
route, and in case of failure in the direction laid down, 
direct him to return to Holland. These documents which 
have only recently come to light must, however, speak for 
themselves , and are of so interesting a character that we 
are happy of the opportunity of now making them known. 
The contract exists entire, the instructions in abstract only. 
The former in consequence of Hudson's ignorance of the 
Dutch language was executed on his part with the aid of 
Jodocus Hondius as interpreter. Eor the reasons stated by 
Jeannin it was made with the Chamber of Amsterdam only 
and is signed by two directors on its behalf. It is as follows: 

// Contract with Henry Hudson. 

// On this eighth of January in the year of our Lord one 
thousand six hundred and nine, the Directors of the East 
India Company of the Chamber of Amsterdam of the ten 
years reckoning of the one part, and Mr. Henry Hudson, 
Englishman, assisted by Jodocus Hondius, of the other part, 
have agreed in manner following , to wit : That the said 
Directors shall in the first place equip a small vessel or yacht 
of about thirty lasts ^ burden , with which , well provided 
with men, provisions and other necessaries, the above named 
Hudson shall about the first of April, sail, in order to search 

1 Sixty tons. 



HENRY HUDSON IN HOTJ.AND. 35 

for a passage by the North , around by the North side of 
Nova Zembla , and shall continue thus along that parallel 
until he shall be able to sail Southward to the latitude of 
sixty degrees. He shall obtain as much knowledge of the 
lands as can be done without any considerable loss of time, 
and if it is possible return immediately in order to make a 
faithful report and relation of his voyage to the Directors, 
and to deliver over his journals , log-books and charts , 
together with an account of everything whatsoever which 
shall happen to him during the voyage without keeping 
anything back ; for which said voyage the "Directors shall 
pay to the said Hudson, as well for his outfit for the said 
voyage, as for the support of his wife and children, the sum 
of eight hundred guilders;^ and, in case (which God pre- 
vent) he do not come back or arrive hereabouts within a 
year, the Directors shall further pay to his wife two hundred 
guilders in cash ; and thereupon they shall not be further 
liable to him or his heirs, unless he shall either afterwards 
or within the year arrive and have found the passage good 
and suitable for the Company to use; in which case the 
Directors wil reward the before named Hudson for his 
dangers , trouble and knowledge in their discretion , with 
which the before mentinod Hudson is content. And in case 
the Directors think proper to prosecute and continue the 
same voyage, it is stipulated and agreed with the before 
named Hudson , that he shall make his residence in this 
country with his wife and children , and shall enter into the 
employment of no one other than the Company, and this 
at the discretion of the Directors, who also promise to make 
him satisfied and content for such further service in all 
justice and equity. All without fraud or evil intent In 
witness of the truth, two contracts are made hereof of the 
same tenor and are subscribed by both parties and also by 

1 Three hundred and twenty dollars. 



36 HENRY HUDSON IN HOLLAND. 

Jodocus Hondius , as interpreter and witness. Dated as 
above, [signed) Dirk van Os, J. Poppe, Henry Hudson, 
[Lower down signed) Jodocus Hondius, witness.// ^ 

Independently of its historical importance, this interesting 
paper forcibly arrests attention to some of its details. The 
modest means with which it was proposed to execute the 
design, — a single vessel of sixty tons, do not conform to 
the modern idea of exploring expeditions ; but the expedi- 
tions sent out for the purposes of discovery in those days 
were all arranged on a small scale, though this one if not 
the smallest of them all was certainly much smaller than the 
greater portion of them. Considering the dangerous service 
upon which the vessel was to be employed, who will not 
say that Hudson was actuated by the most ardent zeal for 
the promotion of discovery and by the spirit of a true ex- 
plorer which forgets all other personal considerations in the 
hope of success and its crowning glory? Neither did he 
seek reward for his toils and dangers in the pecuniary com- 
pensation which he was to be allowed either for the time 
or the future. The amount which was paid him for the 
voyage was insignificant, and for his future employment was 
left entirely undetermined. He no doubt had full confidence 
in the honor of his employers. But when we read that it 

1 Jodocus (that is, Joost or Justus) Hondius, who acted as the interpreter 
and friend of Hudson , on this occasion , was an eminent engraver of maps , 
who like Plancius was a Fleming by birth and had fled from his country 
during the revolutionary troubles. He first went to London, and established 
himself there in business , but afterwards removed to Amsterdam , which for 
many years both before that time and afterwards was a great centre of map- 
making ; and where he died two years after the above document was signed. 
He was succeeded by his son Henry Hondius, who also became eminent in the 
map business. 

The baptismal name of Hudson, both in the body of the instrument and in 
the signature, in the Dutch copy, is spelt in plain English, Henry. The 
])racticc in America of giving it the Dutch etymology Hendrik , is therefore 
more honored in the breach than in the observance. 



HENRY HUDSON IN HOl.LAND. 37 

was in the contemplation of the parties that he might perish 
in the attempt in those distant and unexplored regions, as 
indeed he was after all destined to do, we see how great 
was his confidence in himself to have been content with the 
paltry pittance which was stipulated, in that event, to be 
paid to his wife and children. On the other hand, we have 
a confirmation of the statement of Jeannin of the determina- 
tion of the Chamber of Amsterdam to carry out the enter- 
prise at its own expense, if necessary, and of the circum- 
stances which brought it to that resolution. We may, too, 
readily conclude from the signatures on behalf of the Com- 
pany who were foremost to promote the enterprise. No 
doubt, in the then existing energency, all of the directors 
felt desirous of preventing by all the means in their power 
the apparently ripe fruit from dropping into the hands of 
Le Maire, yet we cannot be mistaken in saying that Dirk 
van Os regarded it with peculiar interest. In entrusting the 
execution of a measure determined upon by them , delibera- 
tive bodies are not apt to select any others than those who 
are its friends and its advocates and who are impressed with 
a sense of its importance. Who would in the present case 
have urged this measure more strongly than he who had 
been one of the first adventurers in the North , and whose 
life had been devoted to grand and bold enterprises? 

x\lthough the contract was, from the urgency of the case, 
made by the Amsterdam directors upon their own responsi- 
bility, it appears to have received the sanction of the other 
chambers and to have been fully assumed by the whole 
Company 5 before the sailing of the expedition. Indeed it is 
not easy to conceive that there could have been any oppo- 
sition on the part of the other chambers, as they stood 
pledged by the express policy of the Company to prevent 
the passage being discovered by others. Mr. Lambrechtsen 
states, however, that the enterprise did not meet with the 



38 HENRY HUDSOX IN HOLLAND. 

approbation of the Zeeland directors; but we have not been 
able to find in the proceedings of the Council of Seventeen 
or of the Chamber of Zeeland any evidence to support his 
statement. Still as a majority of the Council was sufficient 
to adopt the measure, the opposition by that Chamber would 
not have been of any avail, unsupported by all the others. The 
action of the Council of Seventeen was, as a body, distinctly 
in favor of the expedition, as we find, at its first meeting 
after the contract was made, a resolution adopted by it 
committing the preparation of the instructions for the vessel 
to the Chamber of Amsterdam ; ^ and at the followino- meeting 
held on the first of September, after Hudson had sailed, 
the directors of the Chamber of Amsterdam called upon 
to report the orders and instructions given to the vessel; 
when they accordingly delivered copies of the contract and 
instructions to each of the Chambers. It thus not only 
appears that the expedition was at the charge of the whole 
company, but that it sailed with written instructions. It is 
therefore desirable to know what were those instructions, in 
order to understand the particular views of the Company as 
to the destination of the vessel. They are not extant in 
full, but the portion of them relating to the question under 
consideration has been preserved by Mr. van Dam. We have 
just seen that copies of the contract and instructions ac- 
companied each other; and as we are indebted to Mr. van 
Dam for a copy of the former we way fairly conclude that 
he had a copy of the instructions before him when he wrote 
and claimed to give their contents. These instructions are 

1 Resolution van de Seventiene , March 25, 1609. All the members of the 
Council were present at this meeting. Those from the Chamber of Amsterdam 
were Jan Jansz. Carel , Tan Poppe, Bernaerd Berwijns, Marcus de Vogelaer, 
Dirck van Os, Jan Harmanssen, Gerraerdt Reynst and Elbert Symonz. Jonc- 
heyn. The minutes of the proceedings of the Chamber of Amsterdam contain 
a single reference only to Hudson. On the 19th of January that body directed 
a payment of one himdrcd and fifty guilders to him on account of his wages. 
The records of the Zeeland ('hamber are entirely silent in regard to the voyage. 



HENRY HUDSON IN HOf.T.AND. 39 

quoted by him in support of his censure of the conduct of 
Hudson in seeking the passage through the lands of America. 
He thus states the facts : // This Company in the year 1609 
fitted out a yacht of about 30 lasts burthen and engaged a 
Mr. Henry Hudson, an Englishman, and a skilful pilot, as 
master thereof, with orders to search for the aforesaid 
passage by the North and Northeast above Nova Zembla, 
towards the lands or straits of Anian, and then to sail at 
least as far as the sixtieth degree of North latitude, when 
if the time permitted he was to return from the straits of 
Anian again to this country. And he was further ordered 
by his instructions, to think of discovering no other routes 
or passages , except the route around by the North and 
North-east above Nova Zembla ; with this additional pro- 
vision ^ that if it could not be accomplished at that time, 
another route would be the subject of consideration for 
another voyage. // These instructions seem, particularly by 
the last clause, to have contemplated such a contingency of 
failure iti the Northeast as actually happened , and to have 
left no course for the master to pursue except to return 
home. Yet we must not judge too hastily that such was the 
intention. There is another construction less harsh which 
may have been adopted by Hudson It may be possible 
that the idea of the vessel being stopped at the outset by 
the ice before reaching Nova Zembla or entering upon the 
exploration at all, as was the fact, never occurred to the 
minds of the Directors, and such a difficulty was not the 
failure provided against by them. Tn that case, Hudson 
would certainly have had a discretionary power to employ 
the ship for the time , at least , for which the crew was 
engaged to the best advantage of the owners consistently 
with the purposes for which she was equipped; and the con- 
sent to that course of the crew, and particularly of the 
officers of the vessel, who were all consulted on the subject 



40 HENRY HUDSON IN HOLLAND. 

by Hudson , shows that they at least so thought. A still 
stronger circumstance in Hudson's favor is, that no such 
chai^ge was made against him at the time in any account of 
the voyage, and especially in that of Van Meteren, in whose 
way particularly it would have come to speak of it, and 
who must have known it, if it were true. The authority of 
Mr. van Dam is unquestionably of the most reliable character 
for the facts which he gives; but his opinion is to be deferred 
to only so far as those facts warrant it, in regard to which 
every reader will exercise his own independent judgment ; 
and therefore for ourselves, while we confess the instructions 
apparently sustain his position, we are nevertheless loth to 
conclude with him that the Directors were so blind to their 
own interests, as to have required the yacht to return ere 
she had entered upon the exploration and when the expenses 
had all been incurred; or, on the other hand, that Hudson 
would have deliberately disregarded their orders. But what- 
ever may have been the views of the Directors , there can 
be not doubt as to those of Hudson. The state of the ice, 
as he found it, must have been anticipated as possible by 
him, if not by them, and he accordingly, as we will see, 
sailed , prepared for such an emergency. It may be urged 
that he should in that case have communicated such inten- 
tions to the Company. Even that he may have done; but 
if not, and if he thus showed an undue reserve, we may 
pardon something to the irrepressible spirit and daring in- 
trepidity of the man , and the noble end which was the 
great object of his ambition. 

We proceed , in the final pursuit of our inquiry, to the 
unfolding of these purposes of Hudson; and to show how 
and why he came to make the discovery of our river in a 
voyage distinctly undertaken for exploration in an opposite 
direction. A distinguished writer on Arctic Voyages has 
expressed himself as unable to understand what business the 



HENRY HUDSON IN HOLLAND. 41 

navigator had on the shores of America. The mystery, if 
such it has been , need no longer exist, 

§ V. 

HUDSON , BEFORE LEAVING HOLLAND , CONTEMPLATES 

EXPLORING THE COAST OF AMERICA IN LATITUDE 

FORTY AND IN DAVIs' STRAITS. 

The ulterior plans of Hudson are not to be gathered from 
the records of the Company. An explanation of the course 
which he deemed proper to pursue, in the actual circum- 
stances which befel him , whether opposed to the wishes of 
his employers or not, might be found perhaps in his own 
journal of the voyage , or in his communications to the 
Company , after his return , if they existed ; but diligent 
search assures us that these papers are irrecoverably lost. ^ 
Eesort, therefore, must be had to other sources of informa- 
tion, if any such there be. Fortunately, at least, for his 
fame as a discoverer , if not for his exculpation from the 
charge of a disregard of the wishes of the Company, there 
does exist the means of showino- the motives which influenced 
his conduct; and that it was not by accident he came to 
Hudson's river , any more than the discovery of the West 
Indies, by Columbus, when he sought the East Indies is to 
be so considered. It was, on the contrary, in pursuance of 
strong convictions in his own mind of the existence of an 
opening in the lands of America to the North of Virginia, 
connecting with what we know now to be the great lakes , 
and of an intention to prove or disprove that belief, that 
he was led to turn the prow of his little shallop, fearlessly 

^ The journal of Hudson was in the possession of De Laet when he wrote 
his Description of the New Worid , and may have heen retained hy him, hut 
we have not heen ahle to discover that there is any representative of his family 
living at this time in this country. 



42 HENRY HUDSON IN HOI, LAND. 

acrotr^s the Atlantic. On the 6th of x\pril 1609, ^ he sailed 
out of the Helder in the yacht Halve Maan , Half Moon, 
after four months residence in Holland, leaving behind him 
some who felt interested in his success, and doubtless, also 
in his personal welfare , but whom he was destined never 
again to see. He was to have returned to give an account 
of his voyage and to de-liver the vessel up to the owners, 
but it was his misfortune to have a mutinous crew, who 
compelled him to stop in an English port on his leturn, where 
an Order in Council directed him to remain and do service 
for his own country. Certainly no stronger evidence could 
be produced to show the high estimation in which his quali- 
fications were held , than the adoption of such an extra- 
ordinary measure by the British government; but the exercise 
of this high prerogative, while, perhaps it gave Hudson up 
to a terrible end , terminated also his connection with the 
Dutch East India Company, and prevented him from again 
seeing the friends whom he had left behind him in Amster- 
dam. He was not however forgotten by them. When at the 
end of three years, the news at once joyful and sad, came 
to them that he had in another voyage discovered the long 
sought-for passage, through an opening in Davis' Straits and 
that he had been there abandoned by an unprincipled crew, 
Hessel Gerritsz. of Amsterdam, published, with their assis- 
tance, a brief account in the Dutch language of the new 
discovery in a publication entitled: //Description of the land 
of the Samoieds in Tartar}^ With an account of the search 
and discovery of the new passage or strait in the Northwest to 
the kingdoms of China and Cathay, etc.// This tract enables us 
to fix the time when Hudson conceived the plan of crossing to 
America. Van Meteren informs us that Hudson, when he could 
not penetrate the ice in the North, submitted two distinct 
propositions to his crew as to their further operations, one 

1 New Style. Sec Aj'pkndix, Note A. 



HENE.Y HUDSON IN HOI.LAND. 43 

of which was to steer for the coast of America in latitude 
forty and the other to go to Davis' Straits, the latter of 
which they chose. For aught that appears in the account 
given by the historian , this determination of Hudson might 
have been formed upon the spur of the moment; but we 
find in the publication at Amsterdam just mentioned evi- 
dence both that Hudson, before he entered upon the voyage, 
intended to make the search in those directions , and the 
reasons for this determination. The statement of Van Me- 
teren was derived from the first officer or mate of the 
Halve Maan, as we suppose, for reasons which we will 
give presently , and is , on other accounts , entitled to entire 
confidence. ^ Now, the little book published at Amsterdam 
contains a map of Hudson's recent discovery, of which an 
account is printed on the back of the map , where the 
w^riter says: // Mr. Hudson who has several times sought a 
passage to the Westward, had the idea of coming to an 
outlet sea through Lumley's Inlet from Davis' Straits, as 
we have seen on his wap in Mr. Plancius'' possession^ and 
thus to run into the South Sea on the West side of New 
England, •■ where an Englishman, as hehad marked out, had 
been; but after making several trials, he found the passage 
which is designated upon this map, '^ and which he would 

1 See Appendix , Note B. 

2 Nova Albion, — Neav England. It is said by Mr. Kich that the 
first mention iu print of the name of New England , as ajiplied to this part 
of America , was in Capt. SmitJis .- » Description of New England , » published 
in 1616. We have here the name applied to it in a Dutch book printed four 
years before that date , in connection with information derived from the originator 
of the name , at least three years earlier still. The circumstance is not only an 
interesting one in the history of that part of our country , but has an obvious 
bearing in favor of the accuracy of the whole statement with which it is given. 

-3 That is, the map here given upon which this account is printed. As the 
passage above cited is not in the Latin edition of 1613 which, though am- 
plified in other particulars , omits mention of the map of Captain Smith , we 
give it here in the original: » Mr. Hudson die ettelijcke malen AVestv^aerts een 
doorgangh ghesocht heeft, had zijn ooghmerck cm door Lumleys inlet in Fretum 



44 HENRY HUDSON IN HOLLAND. 

have pursued , had the sailors not been unwilling etc. // This 
is an explicit declaration that the attempts by Hudson in 
his previous voyage to pass through the lands of America 
was in pursuance of a belief that there might be an opening 
there, and Plancius is not only given as the authority for 
it, but as having in his possession the evidence of it, 
derived from Hudson himself. Thus the time when Hudson 
conceived the plan is fixed. We are carried back to the 
period when he was in Holland, to those conferences 
which took place between him and the cosmographer when 
the subject of commoji interest to them, the routes by 
w^hich the discovery of the passage was to be essayed, was 
discussed, and when for their mutual information, the ex- 
perience of the one was compared with the facts which had 
been collected by the other. No other opportunity of their 
meeting, at which this map could have been given to Plan- 
cius, had afterwards occurred. It is then virtually Plancius 
himself who here tells us that when Hudson left on his 
voyage for the East India Company, he had the intention 
of seeking the passage in the West by the route delin- 
eated on that map. 

The idea thus entertained by Hudson was based upon 
information derived from Captain John Smith and the 
journals of Captain Weymouth, who had, one or other of 
them, visited the regions indicated by Hudson to his crew 
and who had held out encouragement that the passage was 
there to be found. Captain Smith had explored the Che- 
sapeake and run up its confluents, where he had doubtless 
heard from the natives of the existence of the great inland 

Davis in een doorgaende zee te comen, ghelick wy sulcx in zijn Caerte by Mr. 
Plantius gesien hebben , ende by westen Nova Albion in Mar del Zur te loopen 
door een Enghels-man , soo hy gheteeckent bad , door ghepasseert was. Maer 
na veel moeytens hecft hy dcse wcch , die hier op dees Caerte gheteeckent 
stact , gevondcn , die hy vervolcht sonde hebben , hadde 't ghemeen Scheeps- 
volck niet soo onwillich gliewccst. « 



HENRY HUDSON IN HOLLAND. 45 

seas which debouch through the St. Lawrence. He is the 
Englishman referred to in the account of Plaiicius above 
given, as we learn from Yan Meteren; and we thus see 
how the two accounts, proceeding from different and inde- 
pendent sources, remarkably explain and confirm each other. 
Speaking of the plans of Hudson , when he encountered the 
ice , Yan Meteren says : // Master Hudson gave them (the 
crew) their choice between two things, the first was to go 
to the coast of America at the fortieth degree of latitude, 
mostly incited to this by letters and maps which a certain 
Captain Smith had sent him from Yirginia, and on which 
he showed him a sea by which he might circumnavigate their 
Southern Colony from the North and from thence pass 
into a Western sea: the other proposition was, to seek the 
passage by Davis' Straits, v Captain Smith's map , had in- 
deed been already published with his account of the Colony 
of Yirginia, before Hudson visited Holland;^ but it is 
evident both from the account of Yan Meteren, who says 
that letters and maps were sent by Smith to Hudson , and 
that a Western sea was marked on the map, and from 
Hudson' map in Plancius' possession , also showing this 
sea, that Hudson relied upon something more than the 
public statements of the renowned Captain, and was pro- 
bably in actual correspondence with him : but the commu- 
nications of Captain Smith related, it will be observed, to 
the existence of a Western sea behind the English colony, 
and to a Northerly opening to it from the Atlantic. Hud- 
son however was led to think that the strait might be 
found as far South as latitude forty, though his main 
dependence was upon a more Northerly point and in fact 

^ Smith's book was published in London, 1608, ia small 4to, and bears 
the follow-ing title, »A true relation of such occurrences and accidents of noate 
as hath hapned in Virginia, since the first planting of that CoUonj » etc. His 
map of Virginia, containing his discoveries in the Chesapeake, appeared first in 
this volume. 



46 HENKY HUDSON IN HOTJ.A.ND. 

at or near the straits which he afterwards discovered and 
which bear his name. 

We will now see both how he came to form this opi- 
nion and a more distinct indication of his purposes. The 
little book of Hessel Gerritsz. afterwards assumed a new 
garb. It had evidently attracted public attention , especially 
that part of it relating to Hudson's last discovery. It was 
enlarged and translated into Latin , and with still further 
enlargements and corrections passed into a second Latin 
edition, under the supervision of Gerritsz. himself, besides 
being translated into German, and published in other coun- 
tries. In the form which it finally assumed we have 
further evidence, besides that contained in the extract above 
given from the Dutch edition, that the facts in regard to 
Hudson's voyage for the East India Company came from 
Plancius himself; but for these bibliographical details we 
refer the reader to the appendix. ^ The account as finally 
corrected says Hudson was of opinion that the route which 
one Captain George Weymouth had taken would lead to 
the Western sea spoken of by the Englishman. Now Wey- 
mouth had made two voyages to America, one in 1602, 
and the other in 1605, in one if not both of which, 
he had been at the entrance of Hudson's Straits, and in 
the latter had been on the coast of America as far South 
as latitude 41" 30^ North. There were therefore two im- 
portant points which he had touched but left undecided , 
and which no other voyagers had explored , where possibly 
the opening to the sea, spoken of by Smith might be 
reached, one through Hudson's Straits, and the other in 
about latitude forty. Gosnold, who was on the coast of 
America in 1602, had, like Weymouth, gone South only to 
about 41° 30'; and the navigators to the Southern Colony 
of Virginia had, on the other hand, not sailed farther 

1 See Note C. 



HENRY HUDSON IN HOIJ.AND. 47 

North than latitude thirty eight or thereabouts , leaving 
two hundred miles of the intermediate coast unexplored. 
Therefore it was that Hudson fixed upon the fortieth degree 
as one point of exploration, and afterwards, in carrying 
his purpose into effect , sailed down as far as the Chesa- 
peake, and from thence began his examination Northwardly 
and so fell into the Hudson river. The reason, too, why 
he presented the two propositions to his crew is made man- 
ifest. It was evidently immaterial to him to which of the 
two points they sailed in the first instance, as, in case of 
failure in one direction, they could proceed to the other with- 
out much loss of time; while apparently it showed confidence 
in the crew on his part , and calmed the dissatisfaction 
which they had manifested , by leaving the route to them. 
Plancius appears to have put Hudson in possession of 
what Weymouth had done , having obtained the journals 
of both of the voyages of the latter and delivered them to 
Hudson at liis request. It is in this fact, of seeking the use 
of the journals of Weymouth when he w^as on the point of 
leaving ou his voyage, that the purposes of Hudson are 
clearly signified, when taken in connection with what he 
actually did do. The whole of that part of the Amsterdam 
tract relating to Hudson's discoveries may now be introdu- 
ced to the reader, who will find also in the portion of it not 
immediately relevant to our subject, matter of interest in 
regard to the navigator. It is from the Latin edition of 
1613, and is as follows: 

'/ Description and (jeograpJiical delineation of the discovery 
of the strait or passage to China and, Japan, above the 
land of America. 

// The very fortunate voyages of the English , and the 
great success which has attended them, have added more 



48 HENRY HUDSON IN HOLLAND. 

and more stimulus to that people to undertake new projects 
of discovery; and although they have been most laboriously 
engaged in the East, along the shores of Muscovy, Nova 
Zembia and Greenland, they have, nevertheless, employed 
themselves in the West (Virginia being now occupied and 
settled by their colonies), in order to discover a passage 
between Greenland and New-rrance. Havino- entered a 
passage towards the North obstructed by snow and ice, 
they attained the latitude of seventy or eighty degrees. 
This strait was named after the first discoverer John Davis. 
The last one who attempted the same route was Captain 
George Weymouth, who in the year 1602, sailed in it fifty 
leagues, when like others before him he^ was compelled by 
the great quantity of ice to return home. But not dishear- 
tened, he sailed a second time^ and endeavored in latitude 
sixty-one, to penetrate the bay, which the English call 
Lumles Inlet, where, after he had gone a hundred leagues 
West, he turned to the South and finding no passage by 
reason of the closing of the land , was compelled in conse- 
quence of the imbecility of his crew and other causes to 
return. He, nevertheless, explored two other bays, between 
that land and what they call Baccalaos, having the greatest 
extent of water, like as of a sea, and the greatest rise and 
fall of the tide. Although this voyage did not at that time 
answer expectations, yet the journals of George Weymouth 
which fell into the hands of Domine P. Plancius, a most 
curious investigator of new matters useful to our country 
and nautical science, were of the greatest service to H. 
Hudson , in his exploration of this famous strait, for in 
the year 1609, when he was negotiating with the Directors 
of the India Company ahout exploring a passage to China 
and, Cathay above Nova Zembia , he begged these journals 
from D. P, Plancius; and from them he inferred that the 
route of George W^eymouth, through the straits above Vir- 



HENRY HUDSON IN HOLLAND. 49 

ginia would lead to the ocean which bounds that country. 
Hence the opinion prevailed that by that way there was a 
passage open to the Indies, though it was fallacious, as 
Domine P. Plancius assured him upon the relation of a 
person who had explored the Western part of that same 
country and declared that it was a continuous land. Hudson 
notwithstanding this ^ finding his course to the East and 
Nova Zembla blocked by ice and snow, sailed Westwardly, 
in order that he might see if there were any hope remaining, 
not in a direct course , as is said , in order that he might 
get some profit for our country and the Directors. Exchang- 
ing his merchandize in New Erance for skins, he returned 
safely to England, where he was accused of having under- 
taken the voyage to the detriment of his own country. He 
again embarked with no less determination to explore tlie 
Western route, and arriving in Davis' Straits in the year 
1610, in latitude sixty-one, entered the passage of George 
Weymouth , explored all the coasts delineated in the accom- 
panying map, as far as latitude sixty three, and then steered 
Southerly to latitude fifty four, where he wintered. Leav- 
ing here he coasted along the AYestern shore as far as 
latitude sixty, sailing in a straight course four hundred 
leagues, where he discovered a large open sea with heavy 
waves from the Northwest. Erom these circumstances Hud- 
son had no little encouragement of effecting the passage; 
nor was the consent of his ship's officers wanting, though 
the unwillingness and bad-feeling of his crew presented ob- 
jections, arising from the want of provisions , of which only 
an eight month's supply had been provided , while nothing 
fit to eat had fallen into their hands, during the whole 
voyage, except that an Indian, armed with a Mexican or 
Japan dagger, brought them one animal. Hudson conjectured 
from this that the man had come from a great distance , 
from the Mexicans whose arras and articles of traffic he had 

4 



50 HENRY HUDSON IN HOLLAND. 

seen. The malevolence of the crew at length prevailed and 
they exposed Hudson and the other officers in a boat on 
the sea, and themselves sought their own country, where, 
when they arrived, they were thrown into prison and there 
detained for their foul crime, until Hudson, their Captain, 
should be restored safe, by those persons to whom that 
matter was entrusted last year, 1612, by order of the Prince 
of Wales of pious memory and the Directors of the Russian 
navigation. Hitherto nothing has been heard of their return; 
hence some hope exists that they have passed through those 
Straits, and therefore we can know nothing certain concern- 
ing our abandoned ones, until they shall have returned 
to England, either by way of the East Indies, or after 
having transacted their business with the Chinese and Ja- 
panese, by the same way; for which happy and auspicious 
event we fervently pray. 

// Nor is that zeal subsided among our citizens of 
Amsterdam , who some months ago despatched a ship 
with the view of searching for the passage or Straits 
of Hudson , and of ascertaining whether there was any 
place for commerce in those countries; and, if the result 
should not be favorable, of trading upon the coast of New- 
Erance. // 

The material part of this account as regards the plans of 
Hudson is that portion if it which may be called the in- 
ducement to the discovery of the new passage, namely, his 
previous attempt in the same direction. The object of the 
writer is to show when and how the idea originated with 
Hudson. The time is stated to have been when he was 
ou his visit to Holland and the way he came to conceive 
it was by examining the journals of Weymouth ; but what 
concerns the point relative to Hudson's credit as a discov- 
erer is, in the first place, the remark to which we have 



HENRY HUDSON IN HOLLAND. 51 

already alluded, that he asked to have the journals of Wey- 
mouth from Plaucius. What was his motive in this de- 
mand? In the absence of any thing positive to guide us we 
might suggest half a dozen reasons; but, with the know^ 
ledge that he had Smithes map, and that when he came to 
sail and meet with obstacles in the North he had two routes 
matured in his mind which could have been only the result 
of study of Weymoth's previous explorations, there is only 
one reply, that it was for the purpose of making use of 
them on his pending voyage. In the second place, moreover 
and more directly to the point, Plancius, for it is he who 
speaks, does not leave us to infer his meaning in this re- 
gard. When he mentions that Hudson was going upon 
his last voyage he says, he // again embarked with no less 
determination to explore the Western route,// than he had 
done on the previous voyage. He thus avers distinctly , 
though not directly, that Hudson had such determination 
when he started upon the expedition for the East India 
Company. In this remark, Plancius, whether wittingly or 
unwittingly, performed an act of true friendship for the 
navigator, as it relieves Hudson from the charge of being 
a mere rover, without any intelligent or definite purpose; 
and in giving the journals of Weymouth to Hudson , he 
evidently understood that they were to be employed on the 
voyage. 

The indebtedness of Hudson to Weymouth appears to 
have been understood by some of the old navigators, as we 
find Capt. Luke Eoxe alluding to it in his North West 
Eox, where he says of Weymouth and his voyage in 1602; 
// Hee neyther discovered nor named any thing more than 
Davis, nor had any sight of Greenland, nor was so farre 
North: nor can I conceive that he hath added anything 
more to this designe; yet these two Davis and he did, I 



52 HENRY HUDSON IN HOLLAND. 

conceive, light Hudson into his straights.// ^ An account of 
Weymouth's first voyage was not published until seventeen 
years after the visit of Hudson to Holland, when it appeared 
in Purchas. It is therefore to the zeal and activity of 
Plancius that we may ascribe the direction of Hudson's 
mind on this occasion, though they differed in opinion upon 
the subject. But in this, as in all the acts of his life 
known to us, Hudson evinced that reliance upon his own 
judgment which crowned his efforts with measurable success. 
With this exposition of the causes and motives which 
led him to the discovery of the Hudson river we leave this 
resolute seaman. It is no part of our purpose to follow 
him on the voyage, the details of which will be found well 
told in the pages of O'Callaghan and Brodhead. We have, 
however, given Van Meteren's brief account in the appendix 
in illustration of some points in our enquiry. But the events, 
which happened in our early history, after the voyage of 
Hudson, admit of elucidation from materials in part only 
to be found here in Holland; we mean the voyages which 
succeeded him to New Netherland and the circumstances 
preceding and attending the settlement of the country under 
the auspices of the West India Company which for half a 
century afterwards controlled its destinies; and these will 
make the subject of a separate chapter, hereafter. 

^ We take this quotation from « Narratives of voyages towards the North- 
west, » By Thomas Randall Esq. , one of the works issued by the Hakluyt 
Society , p. 69. The work of Foxe is not at our command here. 



APPENDIX 



A. 



A WORD FOR THE HAl.VE MAEN. 

Doubts have been thrown around the name of Hudson's 
vessel. It is a point of inferior importance, it is true, how 
the little yacht which first sailed up the River of the 
Mountains was called; yet the name of the ship, as well 
as the commander, has, in all great enterprises, been con- 
sidered a legitimate part of the story from the time the Argo 
conveyed Jason in search of the Golden Fleece until the 
Niagara and Agamemnon struggled in friendly contest to 
bind together the Old and the New World. For the sake 
of literature, at least, we should place the name of our 
yacht beyond the cavils of any further doubters. Mr. Lam- 
brechtsen first noticed the fact that the vessel is called the 
Good Hope in the Register of the Resolutions of the 
Council of Seventeen; but the authors of n A treatise^ on 
the discoveries of the Butch , hy R. G. Bennet and J. van 
Wijk^f/ a prize essay of the Provincial Society of Utrecht, 
tell us that // Hudson was sent out with the ship Half 
Moon , otherwise called the Good Hope. // It is indeed 
rather a remarkable circumstance, that in the only instance 
in which the vessel is named in the resolutions of the 
Council of Seventeen, she is called the Good Hope. This 
occurs in the minute, before referred to, of the action of 
that body, in September 1609, in relation to the instruc- 
tions, at the very time when the vessel was about entering 
the Hudson river. The proceedings of the Council on that 
occasion are thus entered: //The deputies from the Chamber 
of Amsterdam, will be pleased to bring with them the orders 



56 



HENRY HUDSON IN HOLLAND. 



and instructions which were given to the yacht the Goede 
Hope^ sailed to the Weygadts. // In the margin is the 
following : t/ The deputies of the Chamber of Amsterdam 
have produced at the assembly of the Seventeen the con- 
tents of this point. A copy is given , thereupon , to the 
respective Chambers, both of the instructions and of the 
contract made with Mr. Henry Hudson , the pilot. // This 
is, however, clearly an error in regard to the name. There 
were two yachts belonging to the Chamber of Amsterdam , 
at that time , called respectively the Half Moon and Good 
Hope, of forty tons burthen each. The former sailed to the 
North under Hudson ; the latter to the East Indies , where 
she was taken by the Spaniards on the 15th of July 1610. 
The writer of the minutes of the council evidently con- 
founded the two names, for there are two other records in 
the archives of the Company where the name is the subject 
of the entry and where the name of the Halve Maen is 
given as Hudson's vessel. One of these is a book called the 
// Sailing book [Uitloop bookje) of the ships, from 1603 to 
1700 inclusive;// and the other, the //Memorandum-book// 
[Memoriael). ^ In the former, which is the one referred to 
by Mr. Brodhead in his history of New-York (pp. 24 and 
43 notes) as the // Shipbook , // the following entries occur, 
under the year 1608, in relation to vessels which had sailed, 
belonging to the Chamber of Amsterdam : 



// Yacht Hope. 



Lasts. 

40 



Yacht Halve Maen. 



40 



1608. 15 April 

Sailed to the 
North. 



1610. 15 July, taken 

by the Spaniards. 
Has returned.// 



1 These two books with others relating to the crews of the vessels of the 
East India Company, mostly since the year 1700, are kept still at Amster- 
dam in the ware-house of the Old West India Con)pany, for purposes con- 
nected with claims and inheritances. 



HENRY HUDSON IN HOLLAND. 



57 



Under the date //1611, 2 May under command of Commander 
Laurens Reael " are the following entries in the same book. 



// Banda. 



Yacht Halve Maen. 




1615. March 6 Wreck- 
ed on the island of 
Mauritius. 

Not heard from. // 



In the Memorandum-book corresponding entries occur, as 
follows. 

// Ships sailed in the year 1608. 



Lasts burden. 



Yacht de Hope. 
Yacht Halve Mane. 



. . . iSchipper Pieter Heeres. 
40 ISchipper Heyndrick Hoitsen. // 
// Ships sent under Commander Laurens 
Reael, 3d. May 1611, from Amsterdam. 



Ship Banda. 



Yacht Halve Mane. 



400 



40 



1615. 6 March. Lost 

at Mauritius. // 
(No entry). 



Schipper Roe- 

loff Tysen. 
Schipper Melis 
An dries. 

The yacht Half Moon was at the island of Sumatra from 
July 1616 till the end of that year, (Begin ende Voort- 
gangh der Oost Indische Compagnie ^ Voyage door VerJioeven, 
p. 129), but her ultimate fate was never reported to the 
Company and is unknown. 

Hudson's vessel it will be observed is every where in the 
records called a yacht Van Meteren calls her a Vliehoot ^ 
Elyboat. The discrepancy may be reconciled by the cir- 
cumstance that these two kinds of vessels resembled each 
other in the number of their masts, which were two; though 
in other respects they were materially different. The Vlie- 
boat was a broad, flat-bottomed vessel intended to navigate 
the shoals at the Vlie. It is now out of use: but is des- 



58 HENRY HUDSON IN HOLLAND. 

cribed as having had neither mizzenmast nor topmast. The 
yacht had no mizzenmast, but had a topmast and bowsprit. 
The masts were rigged with gaffs half way down, like a 
sloop, and with staysails. There was no boom to the mainsail, 
but stays stretched from the end of the gaff to either side 
of the hull. That the Halve Maan was a yacht and not a 
Vlieboat or Plyboat, is evident from Juet's journal where 
he constantly speaks of her topmast and topsail. 



B. 



THE ACCOUNT OF HUDSON S VOYAGE BY THE DUTCH 
HISTORIAN , EMANUEL VAN METEREN. 

The first account which appeared in print of Hudson's 
voyage for the East India Company was in 1611, in a 
supplementary volume of Emanuel Van Meteren's history of 
the Netherlands. Van Meteren was born at Antwerp in 
1535 , but was taken at fifteen years of age to London by 
his father to be brought up in mercantile pursuits. He was 
a relative of the celebrathed geographer Ortelius, with whom 
he travelled over England and Ireland , and at whose sug- 
gestion he undertook the task of writing a history of the 
Netherlands. He continued to reside at London till his 
death on the 18th of April 1612 , only four months after 
the completion and publication of his work. He was Consul 
of the Netherlands at London for the last thirty years of 
his life. His position, therefore, gave him especial opportu- 
nities to write correctly upon a voyage which in some 
measure was connected both with England and the Nether- 
lands. The first part of his history was published surrep- 
titiously in Latin and German in 1595 in Germany, whither 
he had sent it for the purpose of having some engravings 
for it prepared. He first published it himself in Holland , 
in Dutch , in 1599. Another edition with a continuation 
appeared in 1608 ; and the third in 1611 , in 4to : which 
he declares on the title contains his last corrections and 
which, as we have said, was, in fact the last edition during 
his life time. It has , however , been often reprinted since , 
and has been translated into French and German and prin- 



60 HENRY HUDSON IN HOLT,AND. 

ted in those languages. It is considered a standard authority 
especially for his own time. 

His account of Hudson's discovery of the great river ap- 
peared in his last edition, and within two years after the 
event. He wrote it in England and evidently with the 
journal before him of some person who had accompanied 
the expedition , for he mentions the particular days of the 
arrival of the vessel at different points, corresponding exactly 
with those given by Juet in his journal, which was not then 
yet published. It is not probable that it was one kept by 
any of the sailors , for some of the information which the 
author gives would not have been within the knowledge of 
the crew. Nor was it Hudson's, which, it may be reasonably 
inferred , was sent by him directly to his employers at the 
time when he was prohibited by the English government 
from returning to Holland to make a report of his voyage, 
inasmuch as we find it afterwards in De Laet's possession; 
and especially as he had stipulated in the contract to deliver 
it up to them. The journal, therefore, which Van Meteren 
used was probably that of the mate, who, as he alone informs 
us , was a Netherlander , and who , by reason of the official 
position of the historian in London , would be thrown in 
communication with him. This supposition is however more 
strongly founded upon the circumstance that the informant 
of Van Meteren was acquainted with the private views of 
Hudson, at various times during the voyage, and after- 
wards , — a knowledge not likely to have been possessed by 
any person except an officer of the vessel; and upon the fact 
that we are furnished in this account with the opinion of 
the mate in favor of wintering in Newfoundland, instead of 
proceeding home, and with the particular manner in which 
they proposed to continue the voyage. 

Of the relation given by Van Meteren , it will be obser- 
ved that it is very particular upon those points upon 



HENRY HUDSON IN HOLLAND. 61 

which both the journal of Juet and the account of De Laet 
are entirely silent, namely, the plans and purposes of Hud- 
son during the voyage. It is well known to our historians 
and is quoted by them. The original Dutch edition of 
1611 of his history, in which the account first appeared, is 
entitled : // Belgische ofte Nederlantsche Oorlogen ende Ge- 
schiedenissen beginnende van 't jaer 1595 tot 1611, mede 
vervatende enighe gebueren handelinghe. Beschreven door 
Emanuel Van Meteren. Bij hem voor de leste reyse oversie 
verbetert ende vermeerdert na die copie gedruckt op Schot- 
lant buyten Danswyck by Hermes van Loven, Yoor den 
Autheur Anno 1611.// 4to., black letter, folios 360, and 
table of contents. It recommences with the eighteenth book 
of the history, at the year 1595, where the first volume 
ended, and concludes with the thirtieth in the year 1610. 
It does not appear on the title where it was printed; but 
it is there stated to have been printed according to the 
copy printed at Scotland, outside Dautzick, — a nom de 
guerre. The place of publication was intentionally conceal- 
ed. Van Meteren had given ofience by his previous volume 
to some distinguished persons , and he himself in conse- 
quence had actually been brought before the States General, 
upon their complaint of his injustice towards them; and at 
the same time the copies remaining in the printer's hands 
were ordered to be seized. The second volume was , as a 
contemporaneous history, not likely to be more acceptable 
to some parties then still living than the former. He wrote, 
in fact , under a strong Protestant bias. This edition is 
said to have been printed at Dordrecht. (Mr. S. de Wind's 
f/ Bibliotheek der Nederlandsche Geschiedschrijvers ^ ff p. 258.) 
The relation of Hudson's voyage given by this writer 
has been reprinted in Dutch and translated into the Erench 
and English languages. It forms that part of the publica- 
tions of Joost Hartgers, in 1650, and of Saeghman, in 1663, 



62 HENRY HUDSON IN HOLLAND. 

which describes the voyage of 1609. From this reprint it 
appears to have been translated into French, and published 
in the first volume of the n Recueil des Voyages qui ont 
servi a V etablissement et mix progres de la Compagnie des 
Indes Orientates etc.^'f 12mo, Amsterdam 1702. Its publi- 
cation in English was made in //A collection of Voyages, 
undertaken for the improvement of trade and navigation etc. , // 
8vo. London 1703. This last mentioned volume is not 
only uncommon , but the translation appears to have been 
rendered from the French copy, and is not altogether correct. 
As one of the proofs in our investigation , we append a new 
one from the original and only Dutch edition of the author. 
The account occurs in the thirtieth book , folio 327 , of 
the edition of 1611 , and is as follows : 

//We have said in the preceding book that the Directors 
of the East India Company in Holland had sent , in the 
month of March last past , in order to seek a passage to 
China by the North-West or North-East, a brave English 
pilot named Henry Hudson, with a Ylie-boat, and about 
eighteen or twenty men, part English and part Dutch, well 
provided. ^ This Henry Hudson sailed from Texel on the 
6th of April 1609, and doubled the Cape of Norway on 
the 5th of May: he laid his course towards Nova Zembla, 
along the Northern coast, but found the sea as full of ice 
there, as he had found it the preceeding year, so that he 
was compelled to abandon all hope for that year; where- 
upon , owing to the cold which some who had been in the 
East Indies could not support, the English and Dutch fell 
into disputes among themselves. Whereupon the Master, 
Hudson, gave thera their choice between two things, the 
first was, to go to the coast of America in the fortieth 

1 There is nothing to be found on the subject in the preceding book or 
elsewhere in the history. 



HENRY HUDSON IN HOLLAND. 63 

degree of latitude , mostly incited to this by letters and 
maps which a certain Captain Smith had sent him from 
Virginia and on which he showed him a sea wherein he might 
circumnavigate their Southern Colony from the North , and 
from thence pass into a Western sea. If this had been 
true, (which experience up to the present time has shown 
to the contrary) , it would have been very advantageous and 
a short route to sail to the Indies. The other proposition 
was, to search for the passage by Davis' Straits, to which at 
last they generally agreed ; and on the fourteenth they set 
sail and, with favorable winds, arrived the last of May at 
the isle of Paro , where they stopped only twenty-four hours 
to take in fresh water. Leaving there they reached , on the 
eighteenth of July, the coast of New-France in latitude 
forty-four, where they were obliged to make a stay to 
replace their fore-mast which they had lost , and where they 
obtained and rigged one. They found this a good place for 
catching codfish, and also for carrying on a trafiic for good 
skins and furs which they could obtain for mere trifles ; 
but the sailors behaved very badly towards the people of 
the country, taking things by force, which was the cause 
of a strife between them. The English^ thinking they would 
be overpowered and worsted, were afraid to enter further 
into the country; so they sailed from there on the twenty- 
sixth of July and continued at sea until the third of Au- 
gust, when they approached the land in latitude forty-two. 
Prom thence they sailed again until the twelfth of August , 
when they again approached the land at latitude thirty-seven 
and three quarters , and kept their course thence along it 
until they reached the latitude of forty degrees and three 
quarters , where they found a good entrance between two 
headlands. Here they entered on the twelfth of September 
and discovered as beautiful a river as could be found, very 
large and deep, with good anchorage on both shores. They 



64 HEN«Y HUDSON IN HOLLAND. 

ascended it with their large vessel as high as latitude forty 
two degrees and forty minutes , and went still higher up 
with the ship's boat. At the entrance of the river they had 
found the natives brave and warlike; but inside, and up to 
the highest point of the river, they found them friendly and 
civil , having an abundance of skins and furs , such as 
martens and foxes, and many other commodities, birds, 
fruits and even white and blue grapes. They treated these 
people very civilly and brought away a little of what ever 
they found among them. After they had gone about fifty 
leagues up the river they returned on the fourth of October 
and again put to sea. More could have been accomplished 
there if there had been a good feeling among the sailors 
and had not the want of provisions prevented them. 

At sea there was a consultation held at which there was 
a diversity of opinion. The mate , who was a Dutchman , 
thought that they ought to go and winter in Newfoundland, 
and seek for the Northwest passage through Davis' Straits. 
The master, Hudson, was opposed to this; he feared his crew 
would mutiny^ because at times they had boldly menaced 
him, and also because they would be entirely overcome by 
the cold of winter and be, after all, obliged to return with 
many of the crew weak and sickly. No one, however 
spoke of returning home to Holland, which gave cause of 
further S2ispicion to the master. Consequently he proposed , 
that they should go and winter in Ireland, to which they 
all agreed, and at length arrived, November 7th., at Dart- 
mouth in England. Trom this place they sent an account 
of their voyage to their masters in Holland, proposing to 
go in search of a passage to the North West if they were 
furnished with fifteen hundred guilders in money to buy 
provisions, in addition to their wages and what they had in 
the ship. He wished to have some six or seven of his crew 
changed, making the number up to twenty men etc., and to 



HENRY HUDSON IN HOLLAND. 65 

sail from Dartmouth about the first of March in order to 
be at the North West by the end of that month and there 
pass the month of April and half of May in killing whales 
and other animals in the neighborhood of the isle of Panar; 
from there to go towards the North West and remain there 
till the middle of September, and afterwards to return, by 
the North East of Scotland, again to Holland. Thus was 
the voyage finished; but before the Directors could be in- 
formed of their arrival in England a long time elapsed by 
reason of contrary winds, when at last they sent orders for 
the ship and crew to return at once to Holland. And when 
this was about to be done, the Master, Henry Hudson, was 
ordered by the authorities there, not to depart, but remain 
and do service for his own country, which was also re- 
quired of the other Englishmen in the ship. Many however, 
thought it very strange that the Masters, who had been 
sent out for the common benefit of all kinds of navigation , 
should not be permitted to return in order to render an 
account and make a report of their doings and aff'airs to their 
employers. This took place in January 1610. It was supposed 
that the English wished to send the same persons with some 
vessels to Virginia to explore further the before mentioned 
river. // 



THE HUDSON TRACT OF 1612. 

This tract first appeared in Dutch with the title of: 
// Beschryvinghe van der Samoyeden landt in Tartarien. 
NieulijcJcs onder H ghehiedt der Moscoviten gebracht. Wt de 
Russche tale overgheset^ Anno 1609. Met een verhael van 
de opsoeckingh ende ontdeckinge van de nieuwe deurgang 
ofie straet i7it Noordwesten na de Rycken van China ende 
Cathay, Tlnde een Memoriael^ gepresenteert aan den Coni7igh 
van Spaengien^ belanghende de ontdeckinge ende gheleghent- 
heyt van H Land ghenaemt Australia Incognita, f Am- 
sterdam by Hessel Gerritsz. Boeckver cooper^ opt Water ^ inde 
Pascaert ^ Anyio 1612.// ^ It is a small 4to. of forty 
pages , containing three maps , one of the world , represent- 
ing the different discoveries mentioned in the book ; one, 
a nautical chart of Hudson's straits and the adjoining shores 
of Davis' Straits, and the third a chart of the Northeastern 
coasts of Russia and country of the Samoieds, as delineated 
and described by Isaac Massa. Upon each of the last named 
two maps there are printed two pages of description ; and 
upon that of Hudson's straits, is the account, which we 
have referred to in the text. The contents of the book 
consist, in addition to what appears upon these maps, of 

^ " Description of the country of the Samoieds in Tartary , lately brought 
under the dominion of the Muscovites. Translated from the Russian in the 
year 1609. Together with an accoimt of the search and discovery, of the 
new passage or strait , in the Northwest , to the kingdoms of China and 
Cathay. Also a memorial presented to the King of Spain, concerning the 
discovery situation of the country called Australia Incognita. Amsterdam by 
Heasell Gerritsz. Bookseller etc.// 



HENRY HUDSON IN HOLLAND. 67 

a preface of six pages, giving a brief history of Northern 
discovery signed Hessell Gerritsz. of Assum ; accounts of 
Siberia and Muscovy, twenty-two pages; and the memorial 
of De Quir to the King of Spain relative to the great 
Southern continent, nine pages. The entire relation of Hud- 
son's discoveries, as given on the map, is brief and reads as 
follows : 

// Account of the voyage and new-found strait of Mr. 
Hudson. 

II Mr. Hudson , who has several times sought a passage 
Westward, had the idea of seeking an outlet sea through 
Lumley's Inlet in Uavis' Straits, as we have seen in his 
maps in Mr. Plancius' possession , and to run into the South 
Sea, West of New England, where an Englishman, as he 
had marked out, had passed through. After much trouble 
he found the way which is designated upon this chart , 
which he would have followed out, had the common sailors 
not been unwilling ; for as he had already been absent ten 
months, and victualed for only eight months, and had 
during the whole time seen only one man (who brought them 
a large animal which they eat, but who because he was 
ill-used did not come near them again) the common sailors, 
therefore, when they had come up again from latitude fifty- 
two, where they had wintered, to latitude sixty-three along 
the West side of the Bay into which they had sailed, and 
where they perceived an open sea and great waves from the 
Northwest, mutinied against their masters who wished to 
go further , put all the ofi&cers out of the ship into a boat 
or sloop, and sailed themselves with the ship to England. 
For this, when they came home, they were all thrown into 
priso]! ; and this summer some ships have been sent out by 
order of the King and the Prince of Wales to search further 
for the passage, and for ]Mr. Hudson and his companions; 
which ships have orders, two of them, to pass through the 



68 HENRY HUDSON IN HOI. 1, AND. 

passage when it shall be found, and one of them to return 
home with the news , which we are expecting. '/ 

In addition to this account of Hudson's discoveries on 
the back of the chart there is about half a page of the 
preface devoted to them, in which it is distinctly averred 
that the Directors of the East India Company were induced 
to send out the expedition under Hudson in consequence 
of the recent attempts of the English to discover a route 
by the North. This must refer to Hudsons first two voyages 
for the English Company. The disjointed parts relating 
to Hudson in this tract , in connection with the fact that 
his name does not appear upon the title page, indicate that 
the map and memorandum accompanying it were contributed 
after the rest of the work was prepared for the press. The 
same observation is applicable to the map of Russia, which 
has a similar memorandum endorsed in regard to the travels 
of Isaac Massa Both these endorsements are omitted from 
the maps in the other editions; but the contents of them 
are enlarged and made regularly a part of the text of the 
work. The chart of Hudson's-Bay was evidently drawn in 
England, as the names are in the English language, and it 
is embellished with the royal arms. 

The second edition of this tract was published at Am- 
sterdam in Latin, in the same year as the Dutch edition 
and is entitled : // Bescriptio ac delineatio Geographica Be- 
tectionis Freti sive^ Transitus ad Occasum^ supra terras 
Americanas , in Chinam atq ; Japonum ducturi , recens in- 
vestigati ah M. Henrico Hudsofio Anglo. Item., Narraiio 
SerJ"" llegi Hispaniae facta , super tractu , in quinta Orbis 
terrarum parte ^ cui Australiae Incognitae nomen est., recens 
detecto., par Capltaneum Petrum Ferdinandez de Quir. Una 
cum descriptione terrae Sammedarum et Tingoesiormn., in 
Tartaria ad Ortuw, Freti Way gats sitae., nuperq; hnperio 
Moscovitarum subactae. Amsterodami Ex Officl^ia Hesselij 



HENRY HUDSON IN HOT.LAND. 69 

Gerardi. An7io 1612.// small 4to; forty-six pages, 3 maps, 
the same as in the Dutch edition. There is also a plate of 
a Samoiecl on a sledge, drawn by reindeer, with idols on 
an eminence in the distance. On the back of the title is a 
ship under full sail and some verses underneath. 

The title it will be seen is changed and now commences 
by stating the worh to be an account of Hudson's disco- 
veries, which makes the first article in the book. Hence it 
is called the Hudson tract, although what relates to Hudson 
forms only a small portion of its contents. This edition of 
the Hudson article was used in the reprint in De Bry 
(Fetits Voyages, Part X. 1613) , in the Annalium Mer curio etc. 
(Cologne, 1616) and in the German translation of Hulsius 
(Part XII. 1614). It is marred by several errors but is 
of value as a phase in the process of correction so far as 
regards Hudson's voyages. The portion of it relating to the 
voyage for the East India Company we give at length, in 
illustration of such correction and the amplification which 
it underwent from the first edition in Dutch to that of 
1613, printed in our text: //It (the Northwest passage) 
was attempted in 1603 by Captain George JFimvood, who 
having sailed up and down Davis' Straits for nearly fifty 
leagues, and having been compelled to return on account 
of the ice, endeavored to find the desired passage through 
the bay which the English call Lumles Inlet, in latitude 
sixty-one; but after having proceeded an hundred leagues 
towards Hypafricum , he retraced his course, both because 
the crew were worn out by the daily toil of the voyage 
and because he determined to explore two other bays be- 
tween Lumles Inlet and the Baccalaos , where he had seen 
a large river, emptying itself, as is evident from his jour- 
nal : which Mr. Peter Plancius , a most curious investigator 
of such !iovelties, delivered to Mr. Henry Hudson, an Eng- 
lishman , who was then in Amsterdam, to wit in the year 



70 HENRY HUDSON IN HOl.r.AND. 

1609, and about to sail on a voyage, having been engaged 
by the Directors of the East India Company to search for 
a passage above Nova Zembla. When he found he could 
accomplish nothing in the East , he turned his course straight 
to the West, in order to try the passage sought by Captain 
Winwood and described by him as terminating after passing- 
through a strait of an hundred leagues, more or less, in a 
large sea, which sea our Hudson hoped to lind, though 
Plancius showed the contrary, on the strength of a narrative 
of a person who had navigated the Western shore of the 
sea. Hudson not having accomplished anything worthy of 
note in this voyage was sent out again the following year, 

1610, by his own countrymen, and following the route 
tracked out for him in part by George Winwood, entered 
at length after much trouble this strait and proceeded to 
latitude 50 and 51 , where he wintered etc. // It will be 
noted that Weymouth is here called Winwood; that Hud- 
son's course is declared to have been a strais^ht one, and 
that only one voyage of Weymouth is mentioned. All these 
points were changed in the edition of 1613. But the omis 
sions are still more remarkable, and by referring to the 
translation from that edition in the text it will be seen 
what they are, namely: 1. that Weymouth made a second 
voyage (1605); 2. that Hudson begged from Plancius the 
journals of Weymouth; 3. that he went upon the coast of 
New Prance not to explore but for the purpose of making 
a profit for the Company, by the exchange of merchandize 
for furs; and 4. that he left on his last voyage, no less 
determined^ to explore the Western route than before^ which, 
as we have said, is an indication of his design when he 
sailed on the voyage of 1609 to explore the American coast. 

The third and last edition publislied by Gerritsz. was also 
in Latin and bears date 1613. The title is again slightly 
altered, in language, from the preceding edition, but not in 



HENRY HUDSON IN HOTJ.AND. 71 

substance, as follows: n Bescrii^tio ac delineata Geographica 
Detectionis Freti sive, Transitus at Occasiim , supra terrors 
Americanas , m Chinam atq ; Japonem ducturi recens inves- 
tigati ah M. Henrico Hudsons Anglo. Item I Exegesis Regi 
Hispaniae facta super tractu recens detecto in quinta Orhis 
parte , cui nomen Australis Incognita. Cum descriptione 
terrarum Samoiedarum & Tingoesiorum in Tartaria^ ad ortum 
freti Waygarts sitarum , nuperq : sceptro Moscovitaru?n ad- 
scitarum. Amsterodami ex officina Hesselij Gerardi. Anno 
1613;// small ^to , forty-four pages. Besides the maps and 
plates in the first Latin edition and some additional names 
on the plate of the map of Tartary, there is a fourth map, 
of the Arctic regions , and a supplemental leaf with a plate 
of a whale. An important circumstance relating to this 
impression is that it is entirely re-written. The article upon 
the discoveries of Hudson is corrected in the particulars 
which we have mentioned and is also much enlarged. The 
account of the Samoieds is an original one of Isaac Massa of 
Haerlem by whom it is signed. Massa had been in Eussia 
and wrote a full account of that country, still existing 
in manuscript in the Royal Library at the Hague , and 
professing to give the history of that country down to the 
year 1609. AVe have already referred to him in our notice 
of Le Maire. He was afterwards repeatedly sent to Moscow 
as a diplomatic agent of the States General. Hamel, (p. 355), 
says that he // contributed essentially to the extension of the 
trade of the Dutch with Russia. // This edition closes with 
an additional article not found in the other editions, of six 
pages, devoted to the voyage of Jan Cornelisz. in 1611. 

Hessell Gerritsz. , the publisher of these three editions , 
came, as he describes himself, from Assum, which is a little 
hamlet in North Holland. He was, like Hondius, a map 
engraver. 

By comparing the different editions of this little book , 



72 HENRY HUDSON IN HOT.LAND. 

the account, as regards the purposes of Hudson, must have 
been , ultimately , the work of some person cognizant of the 
facts related. As it was published in the very city in which 
the transaction occurred , in relation to which we produce 
it , and within three or four years of the event , the con- 
clusion appears irresistible that corrections would not have 
been made of a statement merely indroductory, as this is, 
to the main object of the narrative, unless the facts were 
within the knowledge of the party, and deemed important 
ly him; and these circumstances point almost conclusively 
to Plancius himself as the informant ; but whatever doubt 
there might otherwise be upon this subject, it is all removed 
when these amendments are taken in connection with the 
statement of Gerritsz. in the Dutch edition , that he had 
seen in the possession of Plancius a map with Hudson's 
plan of exploration , marked out by himself, thus showing 
a direct communication between the author and the cosmo- 
grapher, and the source of the author's information upon 
the subject of the voyage made for the East India Company. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




011 272 299 3 i^ 



